


2000 Miles

by carpelibris



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpelibris/pseuds/carpelibris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set around 2002, around five years after the end of season 2. Finn and Rae are both a bit older here but music continues to revolve everything around them. Rae is a successful burgeoning radio presenter and Finn is a Roadie for a local band that has taken off. Navigating through their early to mid twenties and attempting to stay together long distance for the rest of the year while Finn travels as part of his job, can they handle the seperation or will they fall apart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was always the warmth that left first. That blissful heat from arms draped over her waist deep in sleep. The reassuring weight of him, the heat of his skin, of his lips brushing her forehead and her hair. He faded quickly from the sheets and the only sign he had been there was the slight dent in the pillowcase. She stretched and reached to his side of the bed and ran a hand to smooth over the ghost of his outline as she got up.

It was still early. The street lights outside were still on and it hadn’t quite gotten light enough for dawn to break properly through the mid November morning. The red digits of the alarm clock on the other side of the bed relentlessly counted down the minutes till it would just be her for the next few weeks, for the next month she remembered. The digit on the right morphed from a nine to a zero as six am arrived. Maybe if she glared at them long enough they would stop altogether.

As she was getting dressed she could hear Finn pacing about from room to room as he hunted for his things as the last minute. She reached for a shirt on the floor on her side of the bed, pulled her arms through it and rose to meet him in the living room of her flat.

‘I was about to come back in once I was done with this,’ he held up his overnight bag and continued stuffing his shirts, camera, a jacket and his Diskman inside his bag and zipped it up hastily.

‘What time are they expecting you?’ She yawned and leaned in the doorway against the frame.

‘Twenty minutes,’ he gave her a sheepish look and she quickly sobered. ‘I wanted a bit more time.’

There was never enough time.

There was never a goodbye either. Not a proper one. Neither of them were good with that word. Instead there were slow and tentative kisses at the door. He poured everything into it, they both did. It was full of all the words that were too painful to say out loud. It was an apology, it was I’m sorry for leaving. It was a promise; I’m coming back. His touch felt like feathers as he outlined the side of her face with his fingers and smoothed a strand of her hair from her face. Rae closed her eyes as his lips left hers, wanting to hold on to the moment for as long as possible. To keep him with her. He pressed her tightly to him and his face lingered in the crook of her neck

‘I need to get going,’ he was the first to pull away and looked at her from under half lidded eyes, still dazed.

‘Right,’ neither of them moved for a while. Neither wanting to make any attempt to until the alarm in her room went off and snapped the pair of them out of it.

‘I’ll ring you in a couple of days, once I’ve got there and everything’s sorted.’ Finn picked up his bag and shrugged it over his shoulder.

‘Okay,’ any other words weren’t forthcoming from her brain at that moment. Words like “stay” that burned into the back of her throat. He took hold of the side of her face and made sure she was looking at him and kissed her lips, her cheek and the spot below her ear at the side of her neck, stopping with a word each time.

‘I. Love.You.’ He gave her one last hopeful smile before fishing his keys from his pocket and turning to go with a last look back at her as he left. She closed the door over with a resigned clunk and leaned her hands against the wood grain pattern. It was only when he actually left that the reality of it all sank in with a leaden feeling in her chest. Six weeks. He’d be gone for over a month.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello from sunny Sweden. It’s freezing here. I got in about five and I’m already knackered. Think there’s a pizza place down the road I can crawl down to. I’ve brought that camera so I can take a load of photos for you and Izzy and that. No idea if you can even get them developed anywhere here but I thought I’d give it a go.

Missing you already,

Finn. Xx

Finn put the pen down and got up to put his empty pizza box in the bin across the hotel room and went to open the windows out wide to let some of the overbearing heat out. He opened the panels out as far as they could go without actually taking them off the hinges. The underfloor heating made the room feel like a slow cooker, it was stifling. At that point taking a swan dive into the snow just a few metres down seemed like an increasingly good idea.

It had been just over a week since he’d left. For most of it he’d had zero time to phone or write. Most of his time was taken up by last minute sound glitches with mics and amps or travelling down to the next gig. For the first night that week things had ran smoothly and he had the night off to catch up on sleep, which of course didn’t happen.

Sweden really was freezing. Obviously, he’d expected as much. Just not the kind of cold that threatened to freeze your bits of as soon as you stepped out the door. As scenic as it was his surroundings still felt alien to him, even after his third year of travelling. There were icicles cascading down from every rooftop he passed. Hazard tape roped off the edges of buildings and streets warning passers-by not to walk under them. Finn heard one of them come crashing down behind him as he’d walked past a side street and the weight must have been heavy enough to have dented the metal box it fell on.

He should’ve packed more Henleys and shirts to layer up in hindsight. There were people walking past him that were wearing short jackets and scarves and who didn’t seem to feel like they were on an arctic expedition as much as he did. By the time he acclimatised they’d already be moving onto the next city. Finn could see his breath leave him in thick white puffs as he hunched his shoulders against the biting chill around him. He pulled the collar of his jacket up and dug his gloved hands into his pockets and hoped he wouldn’t plant himself on the ice that coated the pavements.

It was nice once the nights drew in, well, it was dark for most of the day if he was honest with himself. Outside on most steps and doorways there were lanterns lit on every house and shop he passed. A little over an hour after he’d came back to the room a thick layer of snow had fallen across the city. It dimmed the noise of the cars and gave the place that odd silence, a kind of peacefulness that muted almost everything else around him.

Back in his hotel room there was the view of a churchyard dotted with candlelight illuminating the grave markers across from his window. Finn sat on the window seat and got to work for next week’s set list, jotting down ideas and attempted to find a balance between cooking to death and freezing over.

Yesterday he had made the walk to Medborgarplatsen with the rest of the band on their one night off that week which took him past frozen rivers and frost covered bridges. The walk took them to one of the main squares where all the bars, cafes and nightlife were. They’d had a gig playing in one of the clubs two nights ago to a packed audience. Despite the lack of proper sound checks it had actually been one of their better nights.

All the places he saw were usually during the day. Most of his nights were taken up by strobing lights and packed concert halls and bars as the band played each night. It was odd being out at night without having somewhere else to rush off to. Everything looked completely different during the day. At night the street lights and illuminations coloured even the most boring office buildings. He had taken a few pictures with wind up camera Izzy had given him before he left. They’d all messed about with it the last time the seven of them had been together so there were already about fourteen or fifteen photos of the gang on it already. He’d taken the rest to take pictures of his travels. He’d have to try and find somewhere to develop them somewhere once the film ran out.

There was a knock on the door as Robbie and Stewart came round looking for him around nine to get going. Paul and Chris were already down at the reception with most of the equipment and waiting for the five of them to start the usual struggle to get it all into the van in time to get to their third gig of the week.

‘Alright? You can put the love letters away mate, let’s motor,’ Robbie announced as he bounced a fist off the door frame and made his way down the hall to the reception.

Robbie was a typical frontman with a tall and lean frame that he exaggerated with fitted trousers and shirts that were one size too small. His dark hair was always carefully swept up and to the side in a specifically windswept look that took hours to look like it was anything but and there had already been one near fight that night over hair gel between him and Stewart which ended up with the pot and Robbie’s hairbrush being tossed over the hotel balcony. It usually fell to Finn and Paul, their drummer to play mediator and break the pair of them up. When they had first started going on gigs it had caused a near split between the lot of them, but thankfully time had taken the tension out of their systems and they mostly got along fine. Tonight had gone the same way until Robbie was being “a world class ponce” according to Chris and it all kicked off again before they left.

They were close to half an hour late by the time they’d got the van organised and found the right address. Finn felt like he’d been on the road for ages as he drove through the unfamiliar tarmac. The motorways all started to blur after a while and his brain conjured up thoughts of being back in his bed at home. He had never liked it when his dad had taken work trips. He’d be gone for days at a time and the wait for him to come back was always one of his least favourite things growing up. It wasn’t any easier being on the other side of that he was realising.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a rumour going round Round at lunch that their boss was going to be showing up at random for the next few weeks at different slots to “weed out the dead weight” in the station. A few days earlier she’d seen a few of the higher ups had got together in the conference room for a couple of hours and reasoned that it came from somebody getting the wrong end of the stick over it. Everyone had been put back on edge that day because someone from the office said he’d seen their boss making the rounds again just as the evening team were leaving to start the show. Rae’s mind had been preoccupied with everything else going on to put much thought to any of it and finished the rest of her break.

She had been working for Amped for a few years now. The station hosted a decent number of alternative playlists and shows where she’d initially been hired as an internship till they’d decided to keep her on past her graduation a few years ago. She’d been promoted the spring of that year and things felt like they might be falling into place for the first time in a long time.

It seemed to have fallen into place for the both of them really. Finn had been working as a soundman for just over three years now and never looked back. He’d been doing it since she’d been at uni and travelled with a group to gigs since they’d started out just short of four years ago. Rae had met a few of them personally a couple of times. They actually weren’t half bad, music-wise anyway. Rae had admitted as much after hearing some of their stuff live and developed bragging rights for knowing about them before they took off properly. She’d had their CD in the flat for a while and played it every now and again. There were about four or five songs out of the whole track list that were pretty good and she ended up playing them when there was nothing on or when she was bored. It’d all taken off unexpectedly for them in the summer last year which meant more gigs across the country and over the channel eventually. It also meant more time away.

It was great at first, a week here and there and then the rest of the time was split between her flat and his. He’d always come back with a Toblerone or a new CD with that smile that was just hers and all would be forgiven, but the time away was getting longer and longer. Weeks had stretched out to a month and while she was happy he was doing something he loved, seeing all those places, the time apart got heavier and heavier to deal with.

They were opening a new venue in the city next year and Finn had been hired as a sound technician for the new concert hall and the sooner he started the better. Until then they were more often than not separated by either motorways or oceans. Tiny lines on maps. When she thought of the miles like that it almost made the distance between them seem minuscule; almost.

Rae put the rumour and everything else behind her as she walked her way back from the staffroom to start her usual weekly radio slot at drive time that comprised mostly of, naturally, commuters leaving work. That week was their big prize giveaway and it had managed to take off fairly well and brought up the audience numbers.

For the most part she was on autopilot for the day and the first half of the show seemed to flay by without effort. The on air light flicked to life and Rae adjusted her headphones, pushed her chair towards the mic and greeted the first week’s winner.

‘Karen, you’re through. It’s Live at Five and you’ve won the chance to get your hands on that signed CD and tickets to next month’s gig if you get this one question right. Ready?’

‘I am indeed.’ On cue the technicians played the countdown music.

‘Okay,’ she began, ‘which artist recently released Turn on the Bright Lights?’

‘Interpol?’ The voice on the other end was hesitant and the music faded out as Rae spoke into the mic again.

‘Karen.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You’ve won!’

Karen screeched down the phone in excitement and Rae broke into a smile as she pulled the headphones away from her ears at the noise. ‘All that is on its way to you and you’re in with a shout for next week’s semi-final.’

‘Thank you,’

‘What do you want me to play for you?’

‘Can I have No One Knows by Queens of The Stone Age?’

‘We’ll be right back with that after this. Keep listening this week for your chance to win, we’ll be back with some Queens of The Stone Age after the ad break.’

Midway through her slot she had the misfortune to look up towards the glass booth across from her seat and saw her boss standing behind the sound team. Rae could see the sliver streaks in his hair across the side of his head as she stared with a stinging feeling building up along her arms. He hadn’t been looking her way when she glanced over. Instead he was talking animatedly with a few of the suits that owned the whole building. Shit.

They’d stuck around to watch till the end of her show and for the most part she felt like she’d done an alright job covering up the feeling of dread and carried on with a decent show for the rest of the night. By the time she’d gotten home she’d run out of energy and stayed sprawled on top of the bed for a few hours without bothering to get changed or switch any of the lights on. She’d been staring off into space for the past hour or so watching the lights from the cars on the street glide across the wall on the opposite side of the room when the landline rang out on the bedside table beside her.

‘Hello?’ Her voice came out flat so she coughed and repeated it, trying to sound a bit more cheerful than she felt. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s just me, you alright?’ Finn’s voice on the other end was a welcome sound and she pressed the receiver closer to her ear.

‘Yeah, yeah’ she sighed. ‘Just a crap day.’

‘D’you want to about it?’

‘Not really,’ she shifted to sit up and pushed her hair back towards the back of her head with her free hand. ‘What you up to?’

‘Just getting organised for later, can’t be arsed to be honest.’

‘You fancy just jumping on a plane and coming round for a few then?’ She attempted to make a joke about it, but her voice let her down.

‘Closest thing I’ve got is renting a Pedalo or something here. I could just pedal towards the channel, meet you there.’

‘Yeah, sounds alright,’ she humoured him. ‘I’d probably get as far as a couple of meters past Dover, but I’d give it a go,’ she let out a breathy laugh, ‘probably end up getting eaten by a bloody shark knowing my luck.’

‘There’s no sharks in the channel you numpty.’

‘Yeah, exactly. I’d probably run into one that got lost or something the way things are goin’.’ He laughed and they’d talked on for a while after that until it grew quiet across the line as each waited for the other to speak first again. Usually they could just curl up together on the couch or just sit like that without anybody needing to say anything, but the silence then felt longer.

‘I miss you,’ the words seemed to burst out of her.

‘I miss you too,’ he breathed, ‘it’s crap here.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ she scoffed with a frown.

‘I do, I mean it’ she heard him take a breath down the line while he got his thoughts together. ‘I miss talking to ya, properly. I miss going round the pub and stumbling back to yours.’ He huffed softly, ‘I just miss you just being about.’

‘Feel like we only ever get a couple minutes like this most of the time now, it’s a bit crap to be honest.’ The understatement of the century.

‘I know.’ Rae he flopped back down on the mattress.

‘It’s actually total shit. Why did we think this was a good idea?’

‘It’s only a couple more weeks, then I’m going nowhere.’

‘Just feels like ages sometimes.’ Neither of them knew what to say to that so it hung there between them.

Finn spoke again eventually. ‘I’m away most nights this week and I don’t get back to the room till close to three, but I can ring you on Thursday,’ he offered, ‘I finish a bit earlier, about ten and we can talk properly, bit more like now if you wanted to.’

‘Alright, talk to you at ten then.’

‘You sure you’ll be up? Thought you might still be working.’

‘I’m not on till later on, and I’m finished for the year on Friday. I’ll be up.’

‘Right, next Thursday at ten then, I’ll remember.’

‘I’ll be up,’ Rae smiled into the phone. It was over an hour after that before either of them were brave enough to part for the night and hang up.

Rae reluctantly put the phone down and got into bed. For a change she lay in the middle of the bed and settled herself in the middle of the pillows. It felt weird, she didn’t know what to do with herself. The sheets were too cold and she kept sinking down through the gap in the pillows and no amount of shifting them about made her feel any better, she just couldn’t get comfy. Instead sleep alluded her and not for the first time. There was too much space. There was nothing but space now.


	4. Chapter 4

The end of the week brought a welcome gift in the form of an increasingly stressed Masters student. Archie arrived at Rae’s that Friday to stay for the weekend until Sunday night as her plus one to the station’s Christmas do and for a well-deserved break from essays and dissertations on his part. They settled in on the first night with a pizza and some naff films she’d rented so they could slag them off together. They were sat on opposite ends of her sofa with the pizza box and the remote between them when Rae turned to him half way through another montage scene.

‘I’d ask ya how the thesis thing was going but you sounded a bit,’ she pulled a grimace, ‘on edge earlier on, on the phone.’

‘I’ve been climbing the walls.’ Archie turned his attention from the screen and Rae saw the reflection of it pass across his glasses as he twisted to face her. ‘There’s three weeks left and I’ve done nothing except underline the books in yellow and so far all I’ve got is “Alexander The Great was” in different fonts. All the notes are there, it’s just not going in. I’m fucked.’

‘Archie, you used to go on about the bloke for ages.I could probably write a textbook with all stuff you were always banging on about. You’ll be fine’. Archie gave her an uneasy look but she continued. ’You’re a total smartarse. You’ll probably do it all the week before or the night before or something and still get top marks for effort and that.’

‘I don’t think they give you marks like that.’ Archie gave her a look as if to say if only.

‘I know, but they should,’ she sighed and offered him a close-lipped smile. ‘D’you want another drink?’ She started to get up to the kitchenette.

‘Yeah, cheers Rae.’

‘Thought you had some Uni mates that were meant to be helping you.’ Rae came back, passed him another glass and sat back down.

‘Mark’s been helping me with some research which makes things a bit easier,’ Archie volunteered and Rae waggled her eyebrows and laughed at his reaction. ‘It’s not like that,’ Rae scoffed, ‘it’s not. We just get on and he works round at the archives and journals section on weekends so I’m about there a lot. I’ve needed to get hold of some reference only books so we’ve been hanging out a bit more between all the deadlines. Just want the year be over to be honest.’ Rae nodded, she couldn’t say she felt much different.

‘You’ve only got, what? A few weeks till the campus is closed an’ you can just chill out for a bit.’

‘Don’t think you get to chill out with your Masters year. You’re meant to be drowning in paper and hoping the world gets sucked into a black hole or wishing an asteroid lands on you to get out of it.’ 

‘Mark sounds nice anyway.’ Rae took a sip of her drink and Archie smirked at the change of subject.

‘He is. I got a lift down earlier. I’m supposed to be meeting up closer to New Year.’ He gave Rae a hopeful smile. ‘Suppose we’ll have to see where it goes.’

‘He’d be daft not to keep you about, so long as you don’t go on about a load of boring shit,’ she teased. 

‘He likes the boring old shit.’ Archie narrowed his eyes at her and smiled.

‘Just as well,’ she gave his a soft shove with her shoulder.

Saturday night brought the Amped Christmas do. They’d decided to hold it in the station that year and Rae hadn’t been overly fond of going into work on the weekends but it was an excuse to go out and have a laugh so she took it. After close to an hour of fussing over the least rubbish thing to wear Rae waited in her living room for Archie to get ready so they could phone for a taxi and head round there.

On reflection the station looked not half bad when it was all decorated in streamers and lights. In the dark it could almost be a different place altogether. They’d decked the conference room with hanging decorations that bounced the light from the sound system and DJ set they’d hired for the night. The disco lights crossed over the floor as the music played out Rae tried to ignore her booth on the other side of the building where there was still a load of things to sign off on when she got back and tried to enjoy the night. She and Archie got drinks from the makeshift bar and stationed themselves off to the side of the main crowds.

They spent a few hours chatting to everybody after a while and listened to the mixed type of music as it swayed from classic Christmas tunes from Wham to The Waitresses to some seventies stuff she knew her mum liked playing when Rae was thankfully out.

Rae left Archie for a minute and went to get the two of them another drink when the music quietened down and a few minutes later there was a lot of commotion down at the front of the room. Rae managed to see through the crowd to see the microphone being set up and the speakers being adjusted as Darren, one of the morning presenters and two of the women from the admin office took to the stage. It was karaoke hour by the looks of it and, oh bollocks, they were playing Abba. She could make out the first chorus round of S.O.S. The universe was taking the piss. S.O.S, too bloody right.

Rae gestured to Archie that she was heading out for a minute and slinked out towards the reception. She waved towards Archie who went to follow her when a figure stepped out in front of her.

‘Rachel, been looking for you all night,’ Rae looked up to see her boss, well, the entire station’s boss, Mr Myers in front of her. He was in his late forties but the only indication of his age was his dark hair streaked with stripes of grey just at each side of his head. The rest seemed to collect in the colour of his eyes in a steely hue. Often he had a stare that could stop you in your tracks but as he looked at her then he seemed almost jovial.

‘I’ve been about,’ she managed. ‘I was up the front when the karaoke kicked off’ she gestured, ‘then I hid-went round here.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Yeah,’ she shook her head, ‘yes. Thanks.’ She didn’t get to tell him what she wanted when he came back with two glasses of that bucks fizz stuff she’d had back at graduation in his hands and passed one to her.

‘I wanted to talk to you actually,’ he passed her a glass flute and her pulse quickened. This was it. This was the moment they’d decided to chuck her. Someone down the line must have noticed they’d made a massive mistake and this would be him giving her her two weeks’ notice. At the Christmas party, how sadistic was that? Her pulse raced and mind reeled on like that until she tuned back in as spoke on.

‘How would you feel about switching departments?’ Rae’s eyes widened. ‘We’re looking for someone to fill one of our spots for the new weekend show and I think you’d fit the bill. I want someone with a bit of life about them, give us a bit more calls coming in, more advertising ops.’ He lowered his glass down towards his hip as though there was a catch. ‘There’s not as much airtime opportunity as your weekday slot,’ he admitted, ‘but the pay is generous. We need some younger blood and we think you’d be an excellent fit. Are you open to anything like that next year?’

‘Next year?’ Rae’s voice cracked and she coughed to try and clear it. The offer had just started to sink in past the initial fear that she was about to get the sack and her breathing started to slow as her mind caught up.

‘We’re hoping to launch in July. What do you think?’ Mr Myers, or just John as he kept insisting, looked over at her expecting answers there and then.

Rae took a sip of her drink to give herself time to think. The sickly sweet taste turned sour as it burned down the back of her throat leaving a bitter after taste she wasn’t used to. ‘Erm, I’m chuffed at the offer. I dunno what to say. Can I think about it?’

‘We start work on it three weeks after New Year’ he gave her a considerate nod. ‘Take your time and get back to me. Just promise me you’ll think about it.’

‘Yeah, I will do. Thanks for the offer. I’ll erm, I’ll have a think and get back to you, thanks.’

He clapped her on the shoulder and moved to get back to mingling with the other guests. Her heart rate had started to slow down as Archie caught up to her.

‘What was that all about?’

‘I think he just offered me another slot Next Year.’

‘That’s brilliant.’

Rae gave a forced smiled back and downed the last of the contents of her glass. She couldn’t help but still feel a vague sense of unease that didn’t go away for the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

May,

How’s it going? Not sure I’m going to get time to send this, but thought I’d write again and let you know how I’m getting on. That’s the last gig finished for the week and we’re about to head back down towards Holland or somewhere close, not sure yet, Paul’s got the list. It’s alright here, think you’d like it. I’d rather be back there though. Hopefully you get this before I get back.

See you in a few. Love you.

Finn. Xx

The batteries in Finn’s Diskman gave out a few days ago and he was left to the mercy of the occasional top forty radio show or the one crap music channel playing some weird folk music on one of the total of four channels on the hotel TV. The music channel seemed to play on a loop and he was two days away from knowing most of the tunes by rote. If music withdrawal was a thing Finn was bang in the torturous middle.

At the very least he had a change of scene most nights with Stewart and the others when they played. Usually they weren’t the only band to play and Finn could listen to some new stuff. He’d come away a couple of times with a CD one of the other bands had given him after he’d gotten to chatting with some of them. He was sure there was some sort of cruel irony to it, that the music was there but nothing to play it on for the next while.

Maastricht was a student town in Holland. The university there taught mainly in English and there were a mix of people from places like America, Australia and all over who all seemed to use English to talk which made it slightly easier to communicate without having to use what little French he remembered from school and the questionable Dutch phrasebook Stewart had brought. It was also one of the better places for music. Student nights advertised local bands and guest DJ set nights with new music played most nights.

After the night’s show Chris had suggested they head out and they’d all ended up at one of the clubs further away on the outskirts of the city. At that point he’d rather gnaw his own arm off than go back to an empty hotel room so he’d agreed and after a ten minute walk that should have taken five after they’d got lost they were sat round a table in one of the few clubs open late. The noise and the crowds were a welcome distraction from the usual boredom and loneliness he felt when he was back in the hotel, and not all of the music playing was crap he admitted to himself as he started to enjoy the odd dance track. The atmosphere was infectious and he eventually found himself coming out of his usual moodiness and joined in more with the rest of the group. He caught the tail end of the conversation as he made an effort to listen over the crowd and noise of the bar. The other three were looking out onto the floor at the crowd near the dancefloor where Robbie had stationed himself for most of the night.

‘Not a chance,’ Paul scoffed as he watched with Finn and Stewart as Robbie tried and failed to get a phone number from most of the women he’d approached that night. Might’ve had something to do with the roll of toilet paper Chris had stuck down the back of his trousers before he’d sat down to join them.

‘How long do you reckon it’ll be before he catches on?’ Chris asked and took the beer Finn had ordered for him with thanks and sat down.

‘Bloke can’t walk past a puddle without staring, I give it five minutes.’ Stewart looked out onto the floor with a grin.

‘Fiver and you’re on mate,’ Paul fished a note from his pocket and placed it in the middle of the table.

‘Our money or Euros?’ Stewart asked.

‘Either,’ Paul shrugged his broad shoulders and ran a hand through his overgrown hair.

‘Fine, tenner our money that he finds it in two. Give it over then,’ Stewart wagered to the other two and the three of them passed their money over to each other.

‘You in mate?’ Stewart asked Finn as the other two looked over.

‘Nah, think he’s already cottoned on,’ Finn said as he looked over to see a woman he was talking to point behind him and saw Robbie swatting at his back, pulling the white tissue away and making a beeline back to the table.

‘The fuck did none of you tell me I had a wad of this growing out the back of my arse?’ Robbie fumed as he sat down and it kicked off again between him and Chris in a slagging match. Finn just smirked and shook his head as he nursed the pint in front of him. He was used to it by now and tended to just let them get on with it. Robbie eventually saw the funny side and the lot of them resumed their normal half-hearted insults at each other. Finn and Paul excused themselves to bring the next few rounds in. The music played on into the night, something about castles in the sky, and he quickly lost track of time under the purple and blue strobing lights as they crossed in bright lines across the floor where he was sat.

The following morning brought the hangover from hell. Scraping himself up from the bed and waiting a bit till the floor stopped bouncing whenever he tried to stand Finn ventured out and went down to the chemist for some paracetamol and hopefully something that didn’t make him feel like death. The bracing cold woke him up and cleared his head as he started the walk past the off licence and café’s just opening up for the morning.

The green plus sign glowed just further down from where he was. Once he opened the door of the pharmacy he was greeted by the bright florescent lights that did nothing to dim the ache at the sides of his head as he began to search the aisles for some headache tablets. Finn grabbed the first two packets he saw and rounded towards the till before his head split in half.

There was a woman two people in front of him passing over a similar camera he had back in the room and Finn had a thought. He headed quickly back up to the room to grab the wind up camera and stuffed it into his pocket. He double checked he had his keys and his wallet before wandering back out.

Finn got to the front of the queue again and greeted the cashier with a small nod that brought a wave of nausea and put the tablets onto the counter and handed the camera over to a pharmacist who was mercifully fluent in English to avoid all the awkward gestures to tell him what he wanted. He took the camera and left for a few moments while his assistant rang up the rest of Finn’s things. The pharmacist came back with a form and told him to head back in a couple of days to collect everything. Finn nodded his thanks and slunk back to the welcoming darkness of his room.

By the time the usual sound checks and rehearsals rolled around in the afternoon he was still feeling worse for wear to put it lightly. His eyes stung with the light and his legs still didn’t quite feel like his own. It had felt like he was stuck on a ferry on choppy waters. He probably shouldn’t have thought of boats then as it brought a fresh wave of nausea. It didn’t help that Paul seemed to be completely unaffected by last night’s excursion, one of those lucky people with hollow legs he guessed. He was sat tuning his guitar cigarette in hand and sported a look that suggested he had never got past his Nirvana phase. Chris had the look down, right down to the jaw length blond hair and an attempt to copy the facial hair that grew in on his face in patches.

Finn was thankful for the dim lighting of the basement bar the band were set to play a few hours later. The rest of the band played through the night’s set rehearsal with minimal glitches and only a few last minute changes to the song order. He worked through it all despite the feeling in his temples that the drumsticks may as well have been played off the sides of his head. At least he was doing slightly better than Robbie who hadn’t even shown up. 

The next morning was no better. He woke up on Sunday to find there was such a thing as a two day hangover but he dragged himself out for the usual trip to get fridge magnets and keyrings and wander round the tourist destinations and shops to kill time.

The start of the next week arrived and Finn woke up early before they needed to check out and set off for the next destination. He returned to the chemist and collected the packet and headed back to the hotel to pack, but not before stopping off at a corner shop and spotting a post office down one of the side streets he’d missed. When he got back to the room Finn took the photos out of the packet and flipped through them. The first one was Chop gurning into the camera with an arm across a smiling Izzy while Archie was just in frame giving Chop an amused look out of the side of his eyes as he drank his beer. Chloe and Rae leaned their heads towards each other in another and looked out at him and he smiled flipping to the next showing one with all of them sat round their table in The Swan. Chloe had stretched her arm out to get all of them in the frame. There were a few more of them messing about outside. Candid shots of them winding each other up as normal and Finn couldn’t help but feel slightly homesick in that moment.

Another was of him and Rae standing at the bar. They were smiling at each other mid conversation, he remembered being there but not what they were talking about. Izzy must have taken them when they weren’t looking. The last one before he got to the ones he took was a candid shot of the two of them sat together when they’d excused themselves from the rest of the gang and sat at a small table on their own. Rae was looking up at him with a look he never saw her give anyone else. He was brushing the hair away from her face and telling her something and they’d been lauging just as it had been taken. There was one more like it of them sharing a conspiratory smile before they’d left for the night. The two of them looked happy wrapped up in each other and he put it on the desk across from the bed to stick in his wallet in the morning.

He kept it and a few others and placed the remainder inside a parcel bag he’d managed to get at the corner shop and added the postcards, CDs and all the notes and bits and pieces he’d written on hotel notepads and sticky notes into the bag and sealed it up to send it down to her tomorrow while he still could. Chris knocked on his door about an hour later and the five of them set about getting packed up, checked out and out with their bags towards the car.

‘That’s us,’ Paul closed the boot over and Finn cursed under his breath at the really crap timing, ‘better head off.’

‘Just need to hand this in, I’ll be back in a couple minutes, hang on.’ Finn held up the parcel and excused himself to post it in the post office a few streets further down. He handed it over with as many stamps as he could fit and hoped for the best.


	6. Chapter 6

The decorations were still in the shopping bags when Rae came home. The plastic tree was sat in the box in the living room packed up. She knew she should probably make an effort to put some lights up somewhere or display some of the cards she got but there was never the time, or so that was the excuse she made for herself. It didn’t feel right. Instead she spent the evening watching a Christmas TV moments countdown and curled herself up on the couch. She had avoided most of the town centre altogether and had managed to get things for most people earlier on for once.

She remembered that one Christmas when her sister was barely a toddler and the total chaos. Her mum and Karim had gone mad trying to make the house special with all the decorations and toys around the living room. Rae had come back from Izzy’s earlier, just before she had to head back out to meet Finn, to find her sister sat in the middle of the living room with a fold-out paper Santa decoration and chewing on the soft tissue paper bobble at the top of its hat.

‘Hiya gorgeous, what’ve you been up to? Her sister looked up at her and held her arms up for her to lift her. Rae moved across the room towards her to pick her up to say hello.

‘Rae,’ Linda’s voice boomed through the room before she’d had the time to register her coming in. Rae pulled a face and scrunched her eyes from the loudness. ‘I need you to do a favour for me since you’re going in town.’

‘What?’

‘I need you to go down to the toy shop over there and get us one of those Disney dolls. She was after the Pocahontas one, now it’s the Aladdin one.

‘You’re joking,’ she looked round at her properly like she was mad. ‘I’ll get trampled by the buggy brigade.’

‘Give over with your dramatics,’ Linda scrunched her face at the suggestion.

‘Mum, I’m going to end up getting elbowed in the tit or something. We’re only going to Town Records.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, Karim’s working all week and I’m on night shifts again. Tried Toys R Us, they’ve cleared the place out there. Like bloody locusts.’

‘Thought we weren’t doin’ Christmas anymore, thought it was just a family dinner thing.’ Last year they hadn’t. It had been more of a coming home dinner type of thing when she got back from Bristol more than anything else. ‘Thought we weren’t bothering.’

‘You can’t even be bothered to do this one bloomin’ thing for me.’

‘Alright, fine. I’m gonna head off now then so,’ she grabbed her bag up, went upstairs to change her top and met her mum back out in the hall.

‘Take forty,’ Linda handed some notes over to her from her purse like she was being extorted. ‘You can keep whatever you don’t spend, happy madam? It’s like I’m asking you for a kidney the way you’re carrying on.’

Rae rolled her eyes and headed out to meet Finn outside The Golden Plaice to take the bus down to the centre of town. She had been half right about being trampled. Her shoes bore the brunt of feet stepping over her in a flurry of shoppers. It wasn’t just the buggy brigade of new mums whizzing around the shopping centre mowing down unsuspecting passers-by in the back of the ankle, it was harried older women and last minute shoppers, husbands and boyfriends fumbling around the perfumes and bra stands stampeding through the walkways. People continued darting in and out of shops in increasing desperation as the day wore on. In the main street the Christmas display consisted of glittery quilts and a cluster of plastic Christmas trees inside a green picket fence where an android Santa was standing in the middle of it with a singing reindeer puppet thing by his side. The Santa looked like it was about to shed its costume and go hunting down Sarah Connor. Where was Arnie when you needed him?

‘What was it your mum wanted you to get again?’ Finn asked from where he stood to her right seemingly unfazed by the stream of people whirring past and the general chaos.

‘One of the Disney dolls in there,’ she gestured to the shop across from them and his gaze followed. For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of alarm cross his face at the idea of it before he shook it off and moved to the front of her.

‘Right, we’ll get this then and then we’ll go round to Town Records after.’ He had offered without much complaint.

‘Right, let’s just get it out of the way then.’ Rae weaved her way through the masses while Finn followed slightly behind avoiding bumping elbows, shoulders and prams as much as possible to get to the mouth of hell itself. The toy shop. From the outside she could hear the tunes from one of the films, she couldn’t remember which, singing something about friendship and love or something along those lines as people pushed each other out of the way and clambered over each other to get to the till. Rae hesitated outside as people barged past one another at the entrance to get to that coveted toy. It was like a warzone from where they stood.

‘We’ll get in get out and it’s done,’ Finn offered like there was some kind of plan. Rae gave him a reluctant look of agreement and crossed over into the threshold of the shop.

Inside was worse if it were possible. The music did nothing to drown out the noise. People had brought their toddlers who were squirming and wailing in their prams. Frustrated kids were growing red in the face the longer they were cooped up in the harnesses and belts keeping them seated. Two women were near to scrapping, caught in a tug of war over a plush toy. Further down towards the till some poor sod was dressed up in a bear costume waving at kids as they passed. The reactions ranged from a shy wave peeking out from where they’d hid behind a parent to peeing their pants in terror at the sight of them.

‘Jesus,’ Rae grimaced.

The scene in front of the doll collection was probably her idea of what a zombie outbreak would look like. Hands grabbed every which way in a crowd reaching out as the boxes got snatched away one by one. On the top shelf she saw the familiar turquoise outfit and dark plaited hair on one of the dolls. There was no way of getting to it without having to fight her way past them all. Rae thought about calling it a day and backing out while she didn’t have any injuries but her mind went to her sister; imagining her face crumpling, she wasn’t quite three and probably wouldn’t remember any of it but she still imagined her face falling in disappointment and felt a pang in her gut. Finn took her hand and surged ahead with her and people shifted to let him through. Rae weaved her way to the middle of the isle and grabbed the doll down from the top shelf, grateful for her height and passed it quickly to Finn who clutched it tightly under his arm lest anybody was stupid enough to attempt to take it from his grasp.

‘Got it. Right, till.’ The pair of them weaved and manoeuvred through the crowd as Rae grabbed Finns free hand she managed to find a space between two prams that took them to the end of the winding queue. The struggle to get to the front was at least semi worth it when they had the doll in a bag and they was on the way out of the place altogether.

It had taken them over an hour which only left the pair of them only half an hour at the record shop before they needed to head back but Finn didn’t seem to mind. Even when he’d came back emptyhanded. By the time they’d caught the bus home going to the pub as they’d promised looked less and less appealing the closer to home they got. He’d walked her back home even when he must have been knackered from everything going on. Rae had slowed down the last walk towards her street so they’d have more time.

‘Thanks for today,’ she turned to stand just in front of him and he stopped.

‘It’s no bother,’ he shrugged it off as if it were nothing, but it was. Even when she’d wanted to pack it all in and get out of there he’d stuck around without complaint. He’d stuck around for most things; she had always been grateful for that.

‘We still on for tomorrow?’

‘Course. Chloe’s meant to be meeting us at The Basement first and then we’re getting Izzy. You still okay to head round to mine first?’

‘Yeah, sounds good.’ It was cold enough that she could see her breath as it plumed out of her mouth and she hunched over to stave off the cold that had begun to bite.

‘Right, well I’d better head off then,’ Finn turned to go and jammed his hands in his pocket to start the trek back home.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Rae took hold of his arm and he veered back towards her and she pulled him into a slow kiss.

‘What was that for?’ His eyes moved up from her mouth to her eyes, his face bright, ‘not complaining.’

‘Dunno,’ she gave him a coy shrug, ‘just because.’

They’d smiled at each other and took their time walking down the street and up towards her driveway so they wouldn’t get interrupted. Rae said her goodbyes and opened the door in and stepped through to her hallway and called through to the kitchen.

‘I’ve got it,’ she greeted dropping her bags on the couch, ‘nearly lost an eye but we’ve got it.’

‘It’s alright, we’ve got one,’ Linda appeared in the doorway wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

‘What?’ the word came out utterly flat till the irritation set in. ‘Are you joking? I’ve just had to fight off half the city centre to get it.’

‘What one?’

‘What d’you mean? The one you asked for.’

‘We’ve got the Pocahontas one, she was after it again after the adverts this morning. Karim got one from someone at work. What one did you get?’

‘I’ve got the other one, the Aladdin one.’ The one you goaded me to get Rae mused.

‘Right, well we can give her both. One can be from you then.’

‘Yep,’ she swallowed down her irritation before World War Three had started.

She remembered ringing Finn later that night to tell him and he’d stayed on the line and listened to her ranting about it all. He always listened, even when she was talking absolute bollocks and felt a pang of nostalgia.

She didn’t want to miss him. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, being like this, but it was all that much harder as the weeks stretched on. Shouldn’t it have been getting easier; knowing he was that much closer to coming home? She felt a betraying stab of the opposite.

She hated him in that moment. Hated him for the pulling feeling in her stomach as the days fell away. For making everything hard. She hated him for making her miss him to the point where she wished he didn’t come back at all if this was how it was going to feel. She wished she didn’t think like that. She hated herself for thinking like that.

They’d be able to talk again on Thursday. There were only two weeks left till they’d be heading back to Stanford she reminded herself to little avail.


	7. Chapter 7

Thursday night was student night and the band had been late to play. The band that had been on just before had overran by just over half an hour much to the irritation of Paul and Robbie who made sure to shoot a few of them daggers as they left the stage and walked past them.

That night he’d enjoyed being behind the scenes. Most of his life whenever he’s been made the centre of attention he’d backed away from it like a cornered animal and tonight was no different with the small group that followed the band about most of the time. There were a few more of them this time. Finn recognised a few girls from the last two gigs back home. He took that as his queue to set the equipment up and excused himself for the next ten minutes to get everything ready.

Finn never knew what he wanted to do, if you’d asked him even a couple of years ago he’d have shrunk from the question altogether. He just had a pretty good idea of all of the things that he didn’t. Not that it had helped. What Finn did know what that he always wanted to follow music, it had always seemed a no brainer. He just didn’t have a name for it then. He’d known what he wanted to do since Knebworth. Sort of, it just wasn’t something he could grasp getting the chance at so he hadn’t considered it as an option even a few years ago, but the atmosphere at Knebworth that night had been immense, between the roar of the crowds around them and the music thumping off of his chest that made his pulse strum as he and his mates belted out the lyrics that had become a massive influence on his life. He wanted to be part of that in some way.

He’d been doing as much since he was a teenager; all those hours meticulously curating playlists. Picking the exact order of songs from tracks that faded into each other. Carefully choosing the right tracks to capture whatever mood he was going for or message he’d wanted to send. His first proper playlist was the one he’d meant to show Rae that day on the drive down but life had a habit of not working out exactly how he wanted it to.

So what, he might not have been able to stick it out as long as Archie and play a few more chords on the guitar and it wasn’t a secret that he was crap with words so song writing was definitely out. So what that he wasn’t a singer either. He could probably carry a tune, but he’d never tried, at least not sober. He might not have been musically gifted, but he knew music and that was enough.

What he did know was how to make a room full of people go silent with anticipation as the band’s acoustics kicked in and the soft sound of Chris’s guitar carried with Robbie’s vocals to every corner of the room or get the speakers to make the room almost bounce and the crowd seemed to light up as the last track blasted out before everybody left feeling that same feeling in their chest he felt back in that field. It came naturally. It was something he was meant to do.

Once the band had played through their last encore Robbie, Paul and Stewart had made their way over towards the group of girls at the other table and chatted and signed whatever they gave them with an ease for about a half hour. Finn sat beside Chris who was similar to him in that he tended to keep to himself and kept his head down while the others talked and nursed his second drink for something to do.

He’d got distracted once the rest of them returned from the other table and got caught up in their usual heated conversations over whatever happened to cross their minds. Without windows or his watch he just had to guess that it had to be about eight or just after nine. Finn decided to give it half an hour and then get Paul or Chris to give him a hand loading the equipment back into the van and head back to the room for the night so he could ring home in time, but the rounds kept coming in thick and fast and there was no chance of him getting a word in at the point.

He’d lost all concept of time in the venue after that but he had the presence of mind to ask Chris. He hadn’t heard him the first time so he’d had to shout it a second time over the nose of the crowd ‘What time is it?’

‘Dunno mate, why?’ Chris shrugged and looked back towards him from where he’d been trying to get the barman’s attention.

‘Supposed to head back to the hotel for ten,’ Finn yelled back.

‘It’s too early yet’ Chris scoffed at him. ‘I’ll get one more round in, we’ll be done ages before you need to head back over. We’ll get back at ten past or something.’

‘Right, yeah. Just another coke, I’m driving. Cheers.’ Chris left him to it and headed back to the bar to order more drinks. 

He considered just walking back to the room but they locked the front doors of the hotel at night and Paul was the only one with the outside key so that idea was out. Instead he waited for what he thought was another half hour before he and Chris started to organise the van.

Nine had turned out to be three the next morning and by the time they’d dragged Robbie and Paul out of the bar at closing time. The drive back should have been quicker but they’d been stuck behind some gritters for the first few miles before they took the next exit home. It was only when he’d looked at the clock in his room when Finn realised just how late it was. The red lights flashed quarter to four in the morning. Three AM in Bristol.

Thursday night back in Bristol arrived with the first flurry of snow. It wasn’t heavy luckily, or unluckily if you were one of the kids further down. It seemed to dust over the roofs, walls and shrubs like icing sugar. It didn’t look like it would last past a couple of days but it had brought enough of a chill with it to cover the bottoms of the windows in her flat with condensation as she turned up the thermostat and with a brief glance at the clock she took note that she had about half an hour till he was supposed to call and stepped into the bathroom.

Rae rushed a shower and didn’t want to dry her hair off in case she missed the phone going with the noise of her hairdryer. Instead she pulled on an old jumper over her pyjamas and curled up on the sofa to wait. She switched the TV over to some late night film and pulled the throw down from sofa and wrapped herself up in the warmth of it to watch the screen.

The film switched over to a Beadle’s About repeat. She remembered most of the prank show the first time around, it was the one with the old woman getting pranked into thinking there was an alien crash landing at her house so, logically, her reaction had been to ask it if it wanted a cup of tea. Rae’s attention waned and she risked another glance at the clock. He should have rang by then. She reasoned with herself that he was probably running late and hadn’t got out yet. He said ten and it was only half past, big wow. She could wait.

It got to quarter past the next hour and she darted into the kitchenette and clicked the kettle on for a brew to warm herself. Rae waited by the counter as it boiled and yawned into the sleeve of her jumper. She’d been stretched towards the cupboards for a mug and a teabag when the landline rang out. She dropped the teabag back into the box, sprinted back into the living room and swooped her hand to the receiver and picked up eagerly.

‘Thought you’d forgot to ring there for a minute,’ she let out in a half laugh in relief.

‘That’s dead weird Rae. How’d you know I was going to phone you?’ Izzy asked and Rae’s stomach sunk ever so slightly with heaviness. Not Finn.

‘Hiya, Izzy,’ Rae breathed out as she greeted her and hid the disappointment from her voice as they chatted.

‘Were you expecting somebody else?’

‘Sorry, yeah. I just thought you were somebody else for a minute, what’s up?’ She tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible and pulled her legs under her where she sat on the couch. Rae felt around for the remote on the couch pressed the phone between ear and her shoulder so she could still hear her and lowered the volume on the TV.

‘Just fancied a chat. Mum’s organising the Christmas dance at my cousin’s school, so we’re doing all the decorations and everything here. I’m shattered, going to be washing glitter off for weeks, so I snuck off for a bit so I could speak to you.’ Rae zoned out every now and again but her attention came back to the other end of the line just in time as Izzy seemed to sense it. ‘Rae, you still there?’

‘Right yeah, sorry.’

‘I forgot to ask last week. Did you want me and Chop to come up there and drive us all back to Stanford if Finn’s still wherever?’

‘No, you’re alright. We’re both meant to be heading down at the same time, we’ll get you in The Swan with everybody.’

‘Okay. Chop was askin’ if they let you keep any CDs to bring round.’

‘No, they don’t let you keep that stuff. Might have a couple of band T-shirts kicking about. I’ll look tomorrow.’ Her voice must have flattened, Izzy went quiet on the other end.

‘You alright?’

‘Finn was just supposed to ring round about now but I don’t think that’s happening.’ Another glance at the clock told her as much. It was half eleven now. ‘It’s fine,’ she lied shaking it off. ‘I’ll probably talk to him later. I’m just a bit tired.’ Rae yawned then as though her body was in on her white lie.

‘Is it not an hour earlier over here? He’s probably meant his time or something,’ Izzy offered brightly.

‘They’re an hour ahead. It’s fine,’ she shook it off and tried to sound chirpier, ‘honestly. Listen. I think I’m going to have an early night so I’ll let you go. We’ll chat after yeah?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll give you a ring on Sunday. See you after Izz,’ Rae twisted the phone cord in her hands.

‘See you after then,’ Izzy said her goodbyes, she didn’t sound all that convinced but hung up anyway and left Rae alone to her thoughts.

The phone wouldn’t ring again that night, Rae knew as much but she stayed where she was. The sound on the screen was still on low as the TV played on through a few programmes she wasn’t really watching. Another hour ticked by and outside she could hear cars driving by on the main road further up, but even they ebbed away as the night wore on and she was left with just the quiet and her thoughts.

Her hair was still wet at the ends and had dampened the top of her shoulders where she sat as another half an hour turned into another hour and a half after that and by that point she had given up and stopped watching the time altogether. The channel switched to teletext before she had the energy to get up and go to bed. She switched the TV off, padded through to her room and closed the door behind her with a heavy thunk.


	8. Chapter 8

The following day was the last day at the station for half of the building including Rae before they stopped for the Christmas break and her mind was already on holiday for the most part. A smaller part of her was still hurt and angry that he hadn’t bothered to ring her. It had bothered her most of that morning while she’d still had the house and her thoughts to herself, but by the afternoon she had managed to force the feeling to the back of her mind and got on with her job.

‘If you’re just tuning in it’s just gone half past five and that brings us onto our last weekly segment; track of The Week. It’s been a bumper week for tracks and we’ve had a hard time picking just the one so, we’re gonna let you decide.’ Rae picked out the next few tracks to play as she spoke. ‘We’ve got three tracks we’re going to play so ring in and give us your vote and we’ll be crowing this week’s track of The Week by the end of the show. For now here’s The Caesars with Jerk It Out and we’ll be back with the rest of this week’s top picks after this.’

The first half hour seemed to drag by. The countdown to the ads coming to a close sped up towards the end and Rae was grateful for the quick break. She pulled her chair out from her desk and took her headset off just as the traffic update trailed on.

The ads played on not long after and Rae took the time to get up and out of her seat to wander through to the other side of the studio and sat with the rest of the team behind the glass. Magda Craig and Hannah seemed to have the same idea she had and were messing about while the on-air light was out. Hannah was swaying from side to side on her computer chair and tried to toss some sweet wrappers into the bin across from her seat. She’d failed three times from the wrappers across the floor. When she heard the door close over she looked up at Rae and pulled her chair back under her desk.

‘Hiya,’ Rae gave the three of them a slight nod in greeting and sat down on the edge of the desk. Hannah relaxed slightly after she realised it wasn’t their boss on another round.

‘Hi, we were just skiving for a bit,’ Hannah held the box out towards her and Rae dug around the top for one of the red ones she liked. She got hold of one after a brief rummage and tossed the wrapper towards the bin, narrowly missing getting it to fall inside.

‘Wish I could skive, I’m itching to get out to be honest.’

‘We’re heading round the local for a few after this, you up for it?’ Magda scrunched her wrapper up into a ball and looked round at her.

‘Yeah, just need to get my coat and that from the office, but yeah.’ The four of them messed about to see who could get their wrapper into the bin first which had included a lot of shoving and cheating towards the end when the heard the countdown start back up. Rae slid her headphones back on just before the on-air light came back on and settled back in to finish the last half hour of the year. Her eye kept glancing at the clock counting down the minutes to freedom and hoped it didn’t show through as she closed off the show.

‘Well, that’s just about it for us. This is my last track till next year,’ as if on cue Mike took over the soundboard on the other side of the glass and an “AWWWW” sound played over her. Rae smiled into the mic as it faded out for her to speak. ‘I know, I know. Dunno what I’m gonna be doing with myself.’

‘So, for my last tune of this year here’s Maroon Five with This Love.’

The song played out and Craig, Hannah, and Magda switched it over to the ad breaks for the next presenter to take over and got up to leave to head down to a local a ten minutes’ walk away.

It was nice to not have to think about anything and just have a laugh. They’d done the usual, talked about work for the first while but as they settled in the conversation moved on towards daft things and Rae found herself laughing properly for the first time those last few weeks. The four of them chatted most of the night until Magda mentioned that she needed to head back to get the kids tucked in for the night and they’d agreed to track down a taxi around nine.

The taxi rank was only semi-busy by the time they’d got out of the pub and waited. It got to their turn after twenty minutes and despite the temperature being well in the minus Rae didn’t feel all that cold, just that slightly flushed contented haziness of that second round as they clambered into the back of the cab. Craig was last to get in and managed to trip over his own feet and fall into the taxi behind them. None of them had much to drink thankfully and after promising the driver that none of them would be any trouble they shared the fare home as each person was dropped back home for the night. Hannah was second last after her and turned back to her halfway out the door.

‘We’ll do this again when we’re all back, bloody brilliant night.’ Rae smiled back at her and promised that they would at some point. Hannah closed the door over and waved Rae off before she opened the door to her house and stepped through as the taxi pulled away again.

The driver wasn’t particularly chatty and instead turned the radio up just as Stop The Cavalry reached its first chorus. The ride back continued the same way. The cab rolled up just outside her building and she fished in her bag for her purse and handed over her money and a few quid as a tip and headed up to the increasingly welcome thought of her bed. By the time she closed the front door over she was knackered.

After locking up she flopped herself down in the middle of the bed and could’ve just gone to sleep then and there but she wouldn’t thank herself in the morning if she left everything on so she tried to will herself up to get dressed. Her body had other ideas and her eyes began to get heavy as sleep pulled at her. Rae was brought out of it by the phone on her bedside ringing out and cutting through the quiet. Rae reached over and held the receiver to her ear with her shoulder as she got up and struggled to take off her shoe.

‘Hello?’ Her voice already had a grogginess attached to it until she cleared her throat and waited.

‘It’s just me,’ Finn’s voice sobered her she stopped what she was doing for a moment to listen. ‘Sorry if I woke you. Thought I’d catch you just before I head away again.’

‘Everything alright?’ Her voice was clipped and flat as she remembered that she was still annoyed at him.

‘Yeah, fine. Everything’s fine.’ He seemed to sense it and it got quiet on the other end of the line. Rae fidgeted with the hem of her top, wanting to get changed.

‘Right, well I need to-‘

‘Listen, Rae’ he stopped her from saying her goodbyes in a rush of words. ‘I just wanted to say sorry, for the other day. I didn’t do it on purpose and I didn’t forget. I just lost track of time an’ by the time I got out—’ he cut himself off and Rae felt a pang of guilt, he sounded sorry. ‘That’s a crap excuse.I’m just sorry. I know I fucked up. Can we talk for a bit?’ 

He sounded hopeful for a minute but it seemed to dim on the other end as he finished speaking like he expected her to tell him to piss off and for a moment she wanted to agree to anything to hear him brighten again, for that self-assured smile to creep back and for it to be forgotten, but here was still that spiteful art of her that held back that she couldn’t shake.

‘It’s just not a brilliant time’ she softened a little. ‘I’m not long in and I’m knackered so I’m going to head off in a bit.’

‘…Right, well, I’ll erm, I’ll ring you later then.’

‘I’ve gotta go.’

‘Are you annoyed with me?’ 

‘I’m just tired.’ She wasn’t sure if she meant from that night or in general.

‘Talk to you later then.’ It was more a request than anything else and she could hear the wounded tone in his voice and her throat tightened.

‘Yeah,’ she relented with a breath, ‘see you later, tomorrow if you want. I just-I really have to go,’

‘I’ll let you go then.’ They said a quick goodbye and as soon as he’d hung up the guilt kicked in. That was petty and unfair, but for once she wasn’t going to be the one left waiting. She fell asleep without changing and buried herself into her duvet for the rest of the night.


	9. Chapter 9

May,

I’m not sure if you’ll even get these at this point. I’d probably be better off folding it up like a plane and throwing it across. I just wanted to write and let you know that I’m thinking about you and it hopefully won’t be ages till I get back.

Still thinking about getting that Pedalo if you’re up for it.

Finn. Xx

Finn flipped the postcard over and glanced at the scene. He had a handful of postcards by then that he hadn’t been able to send, a lot of them he’d scribbled out because the words weren’t right. He looked at the red framed picture of one of the streets in Bruges. When he’d been out the streets were narrow and cobbled with buildings pressed close together in varying shapes and colours like gingerbread houses or biscuit tins with geometric or curved fronts and old Victorian style windows. The shops displayed everything from porcelain dolls to lace and chocolate shops as the street wound off into the distance.

He’d been wandering around one of the markets nearby where he thought the picture was from earlier that day. The stalls were set out the square under white canvases. Boxes of brass figurines and old violins and tubas were scattered around the place, glasses were displayed in a row along the ground and he was careful not to smash into any of them as he stepped over. The stalls were a mix of things, from soap makers, chocolate wrapped up with bright ribbons and gold boxes to one man selling anything and everything. Finn looked over a box of old records that seemed to get stranger and stranger as he flicked through them. There were copies of Mills and Boon romances in what he guessed was French as he glanced over them and listened as the bells from the church rang out on the hour.

Finn had bought a few things and was sat with Chris and Paul in one of the cafes looking out onto the square with a beer and watched the world go by. He stuffed the postcard into his bag until he could get hold of some stamps somewhere and moved his chair round so Chris could get back round to his seat when he returned from the bathroom. He’d been withdrawn for most of the day and hadn’t spoken much, but for the rest of them that was par for the course with him and it had gone mostly unnoticed.

They’d headed back from the café to get organised for the evening’s gig at around five and packed up and headed round to the venue for half seven. By the time they’d played through the set list and done any encores it was close to ten and the night was still very much young for most of them. Three of them were already planning the next night out once they could get collect their pay and leave for the night. Robbie and Paul got to chatting with another group interested in their music leaving Finn to hang back and wait for Chris to get away from the owner so they could take the equipment back to the hotel.

Once he was back in his room he rang his dad for a quick catch-up that had turned into a close to an hour long conversation and by the time he’d gotten round to ringing Rae’s number it was already close to one there. His chest stung as he picked up the receiver. Finn couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt those kind of nerves as his hand waited to press the last few numbers. He considered leaving it until tomorrow night when she picked up to his relief.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s just me. Thought you might be asleep.’

‘Can’t sleep. Is it not dead late where you are?’

‘Nah, not really. It’s still only an hour ahead.’

‘Thought it was three in the morning there for a minute’.

‘Just gone one,’ he glanced round to the clock.

‘I’m really sorry for not ringing the other day,’ he ran a hand through his fringe and shifted his back up from a slouch and sat up. ‘I’m sorry Rae.’

‘It’s Fine, I’m sorry for being nippy, I just had a lot on,’ he could hear her voice heighten in a lie, she was fooling neither him nor herself as she said it. ‘It’s not brilliant’, she admitted,’but we’re both just busy. It’s fine.’

‘I feel bad, I feel like crap to be honest.’

‘Well don’t.’ She just wanted to get away from the subject and forget about it. ‘Anyway, it’s boring round here, you’re not missing much.’

‘You not glad to be rid of me yet?’

‘Yeah, it’s been alright, actually. Been dead nice with all the extra space and decent tunes for once.’

‘Nice, might just stay here then.’ They could hear the humour come back in each other’s voices. A self-assured grin crept up one side of his mouth as they spoke.

‘Course I miss you,’ she relented and he felt the tension in his chest ease and smiled a half smile towards the phone.

‘Least you’re not stuck watching whatever this is,’ he looked back at the TV in the room. ‘Don’t know what I’m watching’ he frowned at the screen. ‘I’ve got no idea what’s going on.’ His hand dropped to his side in amused bafflement. ‘Some bloke’s getting slapped and somebody else has just come out from a coma or something,’ he stopped as there was a commotion on the screen and he furrowed his brows in bewilderment. ‘Somebody’s just thrown a chair and some woman’s taking a shoe to the guy. It’s all kicking off.’

‘Normal night round my mum’s then,’ Rae smirked.

‘I actually miss Brookside,’ Finn laughed and for a moment Rae questioned if he might have developed cabin fever to actually miss the crap soaps here and he pondered the thought longer than he’d have liked to admit. He was going a bit stir crazy.

‘Thought you’d have found a pub or something.’ He heard her yawn and shift downwards in the bed.

‘Couldn’t be bothered going out. Just went round the corner for a take-away and shambled back to the room. I’m knackered.’

‘You sound it. How long have you got to go?’

‘Just under two weeks.’ She mumbled something under her breath with her mouth away from the speaker. ‘I know, I’m not fussed about it either.’

‘I know,’ she hadn’t realised he had heard her. ‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just,’ she huffed and he heard the sound of the chord hitting the side of the phone as she pulled the phone onto her lap. ‘It’s really hard’ she stopped and he wondered if she was still there. ‘It’s total shit. This week’s been crap,’ she sighed.

‘Everything alright?’

‘Yeah, just got a lot on.’

‘Yeah?’

‘They want me to swap departments, big scary boss man said they liked my style and want me on this new thing next year.’

‘…Is-is that not a good thing?’

‘I dunno. What if they’ve made a massive mistake in letting me take over and they start realising?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘They’ll get two weeks in with me and think, well, you’re crap and that’ll be it.’

‘They don’t think that, he wouldn’t be offering if he did.’

‘What, are you a mind reader now?’

‘No, but neither are you.’

‘You don’t get it,’ she huffed. ‘I still feel like I’m just kidding on, just pretending to be good at this and they’re probably going to catch on now.’

‘Rae’ he started, making sure she was listening. ‘You’ve been going on and on for ages, since I met you about how music is your thing and you’re worried people are going to find out what? That you know your music, that you’re good at your job?’ He didn’t hear her speak after that for a few beats but he knew she was there. He was about to open his mouth again when he heard her voice on the other end.

‘I s’ppose,’ she mimicked his voice.

‘Either that or we’ll just get a boat and do one of them pirate radio stations.’

‘Hope you’ve saved up.’

‘Right, maybe not a boat, we’ll get a dinghy then and a couple of speakers. Take turns steering.’

‘Maybe they’ll give ya a raise,’ he said in an amused voice.

‘Think that’d be pushing it a bit.’ The longer they talked the better they felt. It was easy to slip back into their usual half-hearted bickering over everything. The conversation had taken a familiar turn towards music.

‘It’s all euro trance and novelty tracks over here.’ He’d said when he’d had an idea. ‘Rae, can you do me a favour?’

‘What?’

‘Put a record on,’

‘What one?’

‘Waterfall, been stuck in my head for ages.’

‘Is that what you rang me up for, to play DJ?’

‘Just stick it on you numpty.’

‘Alright, hang on.’ She put the receiver down along with the rest of the phone on her bed and padded to the other side of the room and rooted around her CD collection till she found the right album. Finn listened as he waited and heard the sound of cases clattering to the floor and Rae cursing before the tune started to play. Her footsteps got louder as she came back and put her ear back to the phone.

‘Happy?’

‘No, but close enough.’

‘Finn.’ He didn’t answer straight away and for a moment she thought he might have fallen asleep when she heard him on the other side.

‘Yeah?’

‘I am annoyed at you,’ she admitted. ‘Just feel like I’m constantly waiting about.’ There wasn’t much he could say to that.

‘Couple of weeks and we won’t have to.’

‘I hate it.’

‘I know.’

They talked as the song played across the line between them until the last track on the album played. Just for that moment the world didn’t seem so wide


	10. Chapter 10

The weeks passed slowly and Finn counted the days till they were all packed up and heading down to the channel to start the journey home. He had most of it planned out. They’d talked it over again the other day and he just needed to get to calais, take the ferry over to Dover, meet Rae in London then they’d both head back to Stamford and be back in The Swan with the gang for Christmas Eve, sorted. 

The venue the band played in that night had offered them an open bar in lieu of slightly less pay, so naturally the five of them had taken full advantage of the situation with two of the other groups that had been scheduled to play for the rest of the night. A local group were sat beside them and chatting over the din of the packed crowd. Finn smiled into his glass at the thought of seeing his mates round The Swan’s familiar poster covered walls and their normal table where they could talk a load of nonsense like they usually did as the drink rounds went on. He ran the beermat in his hand through his fingers in a loop absently with a small smile when he was brought back to reality with Chris and the rest shouting on him.

‘What’s that gormless look for?’ Chris asked as he sat down beside Finn for the night. He put a set of glasses down on the damp table top with another round for the table. Finn couldn’t help the cheerful look forming across his face again as he got excited for the long trek home that Friday.

‘He’s leaving us this week, the sod,’ Paul admonished him without really meaning it and passed him one of the glasses of beer he took from Chris and they waited for Stewart and Robbie to finish chatting to one of the other band’s drummer who had played just after them.

‘I’m sure you’ll cope,’ Finn smirked into his glass. This was the last week he’d be spending with them and they were determined to live it up until he had to be off at the end of the week. He and Chris were locked in an argument that had spanned out from decent cover songs to underrated B sides when Paul looked round behind Finn’s head and the three of them looked round to see Robbie and Stewart heading back to the table. Chris pushed a chair back out and leaned back from the table as Robbie sat down and tucked a slip of paper into the back pocket of his jeans.

‘Got news for you lads. Spoke to Elspeth round there,’ Stewart said as he sat down last and pointed to where the other band were sitting across from them, ‘got us some more gigs’. Finn stopped, lowered his glass mid drink and looked over. ‘They’re going to Germany the day after next and got us some slots with them. Another couple of weeks playing sets, two hours each, that’ll give us enough to start recording properly. Three more weeks, we’re in there.’ He clapped Finn on the back who couldn’t manage to share the same enthusiasm.

Three more weeks. It’d be into the New Year before he got back now. He didn’t know how he was going to tell Rae or the gang. Paul at least seemed to catch on that the extra time hadn’t gone down well and offered him a commiserating look over his beer as Robbie chattered on about it.

None of the others took much notice of his more sullen demeanour as, in fairness, for the most part was his usual; but the news left the rest of the night with the leaden deflated feeling that he couldn’t shake. Even with Chris and Stewart making the effort to bring him back around. The table became quiet not long after. The music that filled the silence seemed to get progressively worse, but that mightiness been his own crap mood. Finn left without many words and spent the remainder of the night back in the room. He’d said he would ring home tomorrow and felt a dark gratitude that he didn’t have to tell her any of it then. 

Once they were on the road again Finn took advantage of a last minute stop-over at a rest station off one of the motorways to slink away and find a phone to call home. Finn searched but there had been nothing that worked inside the building so he walked round to the petrol station and found a phone booth out there near the truck stop. The plastic half covering of phone box did little to close him off from the chill and frost outside. The roads had warning signs for black ice which made driving that much more daunting at night. Finn shifted from one foot to the other, if he didn’t he left like there’s be a very real chance that he’d solidify where he stood. He dug the phone card from his pocket and found the country code and dialled her number hoping it wasn’t too late. Finn had lost count of the time difference, he thought it was three there, but it could be eight for all he knew.

Trucks and cars raced by on their way back onto the motorway and Finn hunched his shoulder away from it all towards the phone and waited till he heard the dial tone.

‘Hello?’

‘Alright Girl?’ He could feel his teeth chattering but he persevered. For the first time he was glad that they couldn’t see each other. His voice could stay normal, happy even, but his face would have given him away long before he opened his mouth.

‘Afternoon, think it might actually be evening round there though,’ he could hear her shift on the couch, her voice bright.

‘Yeah, it’s after six here.’ Finn leaned the phone against one ear and pulled the collar of his coat back up as the wind began to cut into his exposed skin.

‘Finn?’

‘Mmm?’ his teeth were close to chattering again but he managed to make the noise.

‘It’s really nice hearing your voice.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ He smiled wanly towards the ground.

‘Yeah.’ She didn’t sound quite right and he furrowed his brows.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, just got a bit of a cold, bloody typical,’ she sniffed. ‘Thought you didn’t get in for a few days.’

‘We’ve stopped over for a bit. Thought I’d give you a quick ring.’

‘Did you get back to France yet?

‘I need to talk to ya, about that,’ he swallowed and felt his throat tighten. ‘They’ve,’ he looked towards his shoes and kicked at the frosted ground, ‘they’ve added some dates.’

‘How long?’

‘Another three weeks.’ There was silence on the other end of the line and he felt a chill in his gut that had nothing to do with the cold night air outside. ‘It’s only till the end of this year then I’m coming down and we can get everything started properly.’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ she mumbled away from the phone.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’

‘Doesn’t sound like nothing, Rae.’

‘What do you want me to say? I’m getting sick of missing you.’ It came out harsher than she’d meant, like word vomit and she couldn’t stop. ‘I’m sick of feeling like shit over it because I don’t want to. I don’t want to miss you.’

‘You what?’ Finn scowled at the phone at her words.

‘I can’t keep doing this and I can’t ask you to choose.’

‘Choose what?’ His back straightened and he held the phone tighter.

‘I don’t want to make you pick between staying here an’ everything else. It’s not fair.’

‘…Are you?’

‘What?

‘Are you asking me to pick, this or you?’

‘No,’ it was what she was afraid of.

‘What’re you saying then?’ There was a commotion to his left as Robbie and the rest of them returned to see where he’d gone and called him back over. He ignored them. ‘Are you finishing with me?’

‘No, no. I just-’ she wiped her hand over her left eye in frustration. Her thoughts were a mess. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t keep feeling like this-feeling guilty. It’s not fair on me and it’s not fair on you. I just need a breather for a bit,’

‘It’s not like I’m doin this on purpose Rae,’ he was raising his voice again he realised and took a breath to catch himself. ‘I didn’t plan this.’

‘I’ve gotta go.’

‘Rae, hang on,’ there was a commotion back towards where he’d left Robbie others again as they got closer and shouted him over.

‘Rae-’ he tried, but she cut him off.

‘You should get back, can’t keep them waiting.’ She knew it was spiteful and petty. They were out of her mouth in seconds and she already wanted to take them back. He didn’t answer and she hung up the phone on him without a word. Finn swore under his breath and slammed the receiver back down.


	11. Chapter 11

Chop,

This was the least crap postcard I could find. I’m in Ghent for the day before we head to Berlin for a bit so I thought I’d send something else down, hope everything’s alright over there.

There’s this bar here I’m in that does this beer in a massive beaker. They take a shoe off you so you don’t nick the glass. Thought they were taking the piss, but they take it in this pulley thing till you hand it back at the bar. Thought it sounded right up your street. I’ve bought a couple of beers to take back when I head back round. If I head back round.

Finn.

There’d been blazing rows before. He couldn’t remember what half of them were about. Some of them were about nothing, stupid petty things mostly. Small things that built up with the bigger things always staying hidden in the undercurrent of it, when they didn’t talk. That had been the problem before, the not talking. Not talking let things fester and boil under the surface until one of them would eventually burst with all the negative feelings bottled up in the back of their throats.

It got better, it took work from them both but it got better. They just had to learn how to push through things that mattered and let go of the things that didn’t. Even the worst ones didn’t last the week after that. You were supposed to argue and fight some of the time, his Nan told him that, his dad too. Anger was only there when you cared. When you were pissed off with the lot of it but you still couldn’t grasp the idea of ever packing it in. It was the silences and the avoidances you had to worry about. When the fucks up pile up in boxes and the other can’t bring themselves to care. They weren’t there yet, maybe they;d gone past that now. He hoped they hadn’t gone past that.

He hadn’t expected her to be as angry as she was. It wasn’t as though he did it on purpose, that it was a choice.

‘That woman’s been staring you out all night.’ Finn came out of his thoughts and looked over to where Stewart was looking and regretted it as he made eye contact with a small brunette woman. She was perched on the edge of her stool on one of the window seats of the café they were in looking out onto the canal. The five of them had settled in a few hours ago and stationed themselves at a booth to the side to avoid the draft of the open door. Finn had been sullen for the days after he’d phoned home but had agreed to go out that night and while he thought things over. 

Finn’s mind wandered to nowhere in particular and his eyes looked over to see the brunette woman staring towards their direction. She smiled coyly at their table and dipped her head back to her table to take some of her coffee.

‘She’s staring at me,’ Chris interjected.

‘Is she fuck. At what, the back of your head?’ Paul scrunched his face at him doubtfully. He took a drink of his beer and tilted his head in thought. ‘Well, right enough. That’s how you pull most birds.’

‘Shut you face,’ Chris glared, ‘could be any of us.’ He and Paul continued to argue while the other three left them to it.

‘Think you’re in there.’ Stewart looked back over at her table and moved to lean in towards Finn. He didn’t answer, just kept his head down and nursed his glass and shifted it between his palms as a distraction. He was knackered. Not just in his body, in his mind. A large part of him wanted to be elsewhere. Miles away wrapped up in white sheets and tangled in soft skin and apple scented hair.

‘No mate, he’s got a bird at home remember.’ Robbie looked to Finn who gave a brief nod in response. 

‘So, he won’t mind if I go.’ Chris looked over at Finn and then gave Paul a smug look earning him a middle finger in response.

‘I’m going to call it a night in a bit.’ Finn slid his glass in towards the table and leaned back in his chair.

‘You’re so boring.’ Robbie sighed and rolled his eyes at him as he drank more of his pint. 

‘Not really, just don’t want to get stuck dragging you back to the hotel. You can’t handle that crème de menthe, lightweight.’ He mocked him. Finn got varying jeers and pleas to finish the night with them in response. He laughed as he passed the brunette’s spot. Chris used the excuse to see Finn out and got up, followed him near to the door and sat down beside the woman to introduce himself as Finn exited out the door and made his way back towards the hotel.

There were lights strung around the trees on the streets he walked down. He wouldn’t admit as much out loud to anybody but he usually didn’t mind decorating the house most years. He and his Nan used to have the tree up and decorated before his dad got home as a surprise. It had become a tradition right up until he left home. Rae had helped him a few years ago back when he still lived with his dad. At some point they had stuck the record player on beside the couch and settled in for the rest of the night, just being together. Now he wondered if there were any nights like that left after all this.

The thought just made him make up his mind quicker.


	12. Chapter 12

She knew three days had passed only because most of the breakfast TV shows had brought in a different school every day to sing on air and the music channels were doing their Christmas Number one countdown. Time seemed to be speeding up for a change and for a while Rae wished she could step away from it entirely to catch her breath, but instead she had carried on as normal just as life had and found herself sat back inside Dr Hastings’ office for an appointment session.

She was an older woman around her mum’s age maybe slightly older with a penchant for long cardigans and pendants in varying tones of grey and beige. Rae had been seeing her for close to eight months. It had taken a bit of time to open up again to somebody new, nearly as long as it had taken to find a therapist she was comfortable with in the first place. There’d been a lot of effort needed on both sides but after some time the two of them had managed to get to a place where Rae felt comfortable discussing most things without too much coaxing. Today had been easier because there was a lot on her mind.

‘So, last session you were talking about some of the stresses you were having with your job. How are things progressing there?’ Dr Hastings sat to Rae’s right on a chair in a room reminiscent of new housing show rooms. Pristine despite the attempts to make it look lived in.

‘Well, I’ve sort of been headhunted.’ Dr Hastings shifted forward in her seat and smiled.

‘That’s fantastic. You must be pleased.’ She put her pen down and tucked her mid-length brown hair behind one of her ears as she listened.

‘Yeah, but,’ Rae wasn’t sure how to say it. The leather creaked as she leaned forwards slightly so her wrists sat clasped together on her knees, ‘I sometimes feel like I’m going to get caught out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like somebody’s going to come up and say “sorry, we’ve made a massive mistake,” with everything. Like I’m just pretending and everybody’s going to catch on and drop me.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I dunno. I know it’s stupid and nobody’s said anything about it, it’s just this feeling in the back of my head.’

‘That’s likely to be your own negative thinking.’ She looked to Rae and she reluctantly nodded. ‘We’ve talked about this a while back. A lot of successful people suffer from a form of impostor syndrome. You don’t rate your abilities so you think nobody else should. They hired you for a reason. I’d like you to bear that in mind when you’re back at work, keep that mind-set if you can.’

‘I know it’s stupid. I just really don’t want to lose my job.’

‘Have you spoke to anyone about some of it, a colleague or a friend? They’d be able to tell you some of your better points you don’t always see. Your boyfriend maybe, from what you’ve said you’ve been very supportive of each other.’

‘Yeah, he said the same thing ages ago’ she remembered. ‘That I was good at my job and I wouldn’t be there if I wasn’t,’ he had a way of helping her to stop and think. He always waited until she was finished, just listened. Her mind went back to their last conversation and pulled on the edge of her sleeves. ‘He’s decided to stay overseas for a bit longer. I won’t see him till after New Year.’

‘Okay.’ Dr Hastings had sensed there was more to it than that and Rae sighed and continued. Letting the weight of it lessen as she spoke.

‘It was fine,’ she breathed, ‘he was away for the week or whatever and then he’d be back for half the next and it was good and everything, but,’ Rae shifted in her seat, feeling guilty.

‘But?’

‘He’s gone even longer now. It was three weeks at a time and then a month and now it’s stretched right out till next year’ she gave a resigned shrug. ‘We were supposed to go round to my mum’s before Christmas Eve and stay at his Dad’s after, but they’ve added more tour dates so I won’t see him again till after New Year.’

‘Did he talk to you about it before this?’

‘He doesn’t get the choice. It’s not his fault.’ The moment she said it was when it sunk in properly. He wasn’t doing any of it on purpose and wanted to be home as much as she did. It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t fair to feel this way, but it didn’t stop her.‘He’s just busy and I know it’s a bit shit to be angry over it. He’s doing something he likes and if it was the other way round he probably wouldn’t be as,’ she shrugged as the words dried up. 

‘It’s difficult for you,’ she stated rather than asked.

‘It’s hard,’ Rae nodded.

‘Well, there’s a few things to consider.’

‘Like what?’

‘Do the pros outweigh the cons? Do the positive aspects outweigh all the negatives we’ve talked about before?’

The good had always cancelled out the bad; hadn’t they? This wouldn’t matter so much if they didn’t.

‘Yeah, yeah they do, because I’m annoyed at him, if they didn’t I would’t care. I hate that I’m angry at him, I hate that he’s not about, but I still stay up till the morning till he gets back or when he rings. He’s still the person I want to talk to when stuff happens. I still miss him when he’s not about and if I didn’t there’s no point is there?’

‘So,’ Dr Hastings took a sip of her water and put it down on the side tables to her right. ‘The plan was to see out the rest of the month and then the agreement was to go home together?’ She waited until she saw a nod from Rae. ‘It sounds like this is a situation that none of you have agreed to. It’s a difficult situation for both of you. You’ve had to come to terms with the fact that you’ll both be around other people more than each other, speaking on the phone every now and again is only a small part and it’s easy to forget all the things you have face to face that aren’t there now.’

‘Doesn’t matter anyway. I think I’ve ruined it,’ she scoffed darkly, ‘I have. I said I wanted a breather. I don’t, wish I’d never have said it.’

‘Did he want to do the same?’

‘I don’t know, I put the phone down, wish I’d never have done it.’

‘Then that last time you spoke you’ve left things without closure. You said you wanted a break but he hasn’t had a chance to say how he feels. Is there any way you can reach out first, try and resolve the situation?’

‘No, he has to ring me. They move about a lot, he’s not supposed to get back till the week after New Year.’

‘Then he’ll be heading presumably back home?’ Rae nodded again. ‘Then it’s just a matter of waiting things out, until one of you reaches out first, preferably you.’ 

‘He was taking a job here after this so he didn’t have to keep travelling about all the time. He was doing it for me, but,’ she shrugged. ‘I just felt guilty, like I was making him pick and I did. I know he likes doing it, just not being away and if it was the other way round he would’ve been alright with it.’

‘I don’t think that’s a fair comparison, there’s no way for you to know that that’s how someone else will react to something like this. Did you ever speak to him about that worry before this?’

‘No, but he wouldn’t have said anyway.’ Dr Hastings listened and thought for a few minutes and Rae wondered if she was starting to think she’d messed it up as much as she did.

‘It’s not an easy thing and I can tell you that these things are difficult for even the longest of relationships. You had something to look forward to, you both had a goal and that’s been changed without anybody’s consent, so beating yourself up for having what isn’t an unreasonable reaction, for being angry at a situation out of your control helps neither of you. I’d like it if by the next time I see you that you’ve spoken about some of these things with your partner if you can. It sounds like you’ve both left things on uncertain terms, one of you is going to make the call either way, whether you get a call or you see the end of the year out and make contact and whomever does at least you’ll know where you stand.’ 

‘I’ll em, I’ll think about it.’ 

‘Then I’ll see you next session,’ she stood up and escorted Rae to the door. Rae made her way out and thought it all over. ‘This isn’t a permanent situation and whatever the outcome this is something that is not in your control, but you still have a choice over how you react to it. Something to consider.’

The more she thought about it and turned it over in her mind the surer she became. This wasn’t permanent, she didn’t have to like it, but it wasn’t forever. She loved him, it wouldn’t be this difficult and miserable if she didn’t. Even when they were being their worst, all the grisly bits of them open wide the world was better place when they were a them. They could be pissed off at each other to the point of slamming doors and avoiding so much as speaking at times, but it didn’t change anything. Not underneath it all, she had to believe that and the thought that the phone call they had that week could be their last twisted her stomach.


	13. Chapter 13

Rae,

I don’t know if we’re still speaking because I’ve been avoiding phoning you to find out. I’m sorry for being a prat about everything.

Finn Xx

The days following Rae tried to take her mind off of things by carrying on as normal and distracted herself meeting up with some old uni mates and spending a few days wandering round old haunts with them including the infamous Christmas Steps she nearly rolled her way down one year on a night out with Sam and Ewan. Then the steep slope of the street had been full of revellers staggering out from Christmas nights out and office parties. Groups of women walked past with paper crowns and tinsel wrapped round like a feather boa. Couples traipsed past her every now and again caught up in their own world and the sting in the bottom of her stomach returned. Sam seemed to catch on quickly and looped her arm through hers and pulled her out of it with one of her stories, something involving running out on a date out the door with the pint glass still in her hand and she was grateful to have a mate there even for a couple of hours.

Rae had been out again earlier that day for a last minute thing to take up to her mum’s and she was on her way back home. At that point she was knackered and close to looking forward to the long journey back home in the next couple of days. The gang had things planned for the week and she was eager to get down there. The crap part would be telling everyone that it was just the five of them this year, well,one of the crap parts, there was a queue. Rae made her way upstairs to her flat and fumbled for her keys when her neighbour popped his head round his door as she passed. He was an older man, about five years into his retirement and usually took it upon himself to upkeep the garden out front and take deliveries when the neighbours were out. Rae stopped and turned back down the corridor as he emerged from his door and shuffled his slippered feet along the floor towards her.

‘Something came for you while you were out,’ he passed her a parcel and Rae turned it over in her hands and looked at the crinkled yellow bag with a collection of stamps from various countries scattered along the front.

‘Cheers David.’ He waved her off and Rae closed the door over and took it through to her bedroom. The post date was from weeks ago and she opened the seal and shook it till the contents fell out onto her white bedsheets.

A plethora of things spilled out from ticket stubs across subways and buses from Stockholm to Brussels to museum passes, postcards with his familiar scrawled writing. She picked up a postcard with a skier and turned it over to read it.

May,

Hello from sunny Sweden. It’s freezing here…

She flicked through the photos that had fallen out. There were a few photos of the two of them together along with the rest of the gang from last time that had made her smile. She found one of a set of icicles cascading down the side of one of the buildings and another of a pub somewhere with him and the band making faces at the camera. She looked at the others, a few of them had him in them smiling softly into the camera in various combinations of Henleys, jumpers and wrapped up in his coat in the freezing cold as time wore on.

He’d saved them for her. All these photos in all the places he’d been, some with writing on the back, things he’d done there and where he wanted the two of them to go. He’d put in leaflets he’d found with weird translations and funny words. Things he thought she’d love and a few he knew she would hate. All these things he’d done and wanted to share, he’d saved them up so she could see them.

May,

Found this place doing Vinyl and things further down from where I’m staying. Thought you might enjoy these. More to come when I get back….

She peeled off the sticky note in front of it to find a moustachioed man staring off to the distance with a glockenspiel and a top hat. She rolled her eyes in amusement and flipped the CD over to the tracks which comprised mostly of Beatles covers accompanied by the accordion on a few. Another had a typical seventies pornstached man in a white suit with a huge opaque headshot of himself floating to the left that was titled simply Ken; By Request Only. If he thought she was actually going to listen to any of it he was taking the piss. He’d managed to wind her up close to two thousand miles away. That was talent.

A third CD was a sixties folk group called The Shaggs and a note on it saying Missing… ‘Cheeky sod,’ Rae laughed and put them down beside some proper stuff he had sent all wrapped together for her to listen to. Once she’d read everything the tightness in her chest returned. She smoothed a hand over the contents on her duvet, looking at them and then remembering how badly their last conversation had went. She picked up a handful of notes and postcards and read his writing over again like they were a promise and kept a few of them on her bedside table. She imagined him lying on his side of the bed, just out of reach and tried to sleep.

It was after eleven when the phone rang out on the other side of the flat and beside the bed. Rae lifted her head from the her pillow and scrunched her face in confusion as everything around her came into focus. Rae scrambled towards the sound, hitting her arm across the pillow to feel for the table and picked up the receiver. 

‘Hello?’ She sounded like she’d swallowed gravel and she cleared her throat. The voice on the other end made her sit up straight and press the plastic closer to her ear.

‘It’s erm, It’s just me’ Finn’s voice was soft and quiet, ‘did I wake you?’

‘No, course not,’ she lied.

‘Rae, listen-’ Finn started but she had to get her words out first before anything else happened.

‘I’m sorry Finn. I didn’t mean what I said. I was talking bollocks, I don’t want a breather, it’s not your fault, I know that. I was just upset and being a cow about it, I’m just really sorry.’ the words come out in a torrent.

‘Don’t be daft,’ he breathed in relief. ‘I don’t want a breather either. It’s been crap here since,’ Finn pulled the phone cable and moved the handset to where he was sat on the end of his bed. ‘I wanted to tell you that I’ll tell them I’m heading back and they can get Tony or somebody to come down and take over.’

He’d got most of it planned out. Tomorrow he didn’t have to be anywhere till late so that left him most of the day to wander around to find somewhere to get tickets or a bus or whatever it took. At this rate he’d take a raft if it got him near to Dover. Finn had scrawled over the notepad the hotel left in his room and jotted down all the hours it would take depending on how many buses or ferry tickets he used and working out how much cash he had to do it.

‘Don’t.’ The word was out but the rest of her was screaming at her to say the opposite. 

‘No, Rae listen. I’ll get a ticket and-‘

‘Don’t. I can’t ask you to, I should never had said it.’

‘I can come back and start handing a CV in, get a job at a garage or somewhere for a bit. Just until New Year’s and I can start at the concert place later. Doesn’t matter. I’ll do it.’

‘I never wanted you to have to choose, it’s not fair.’

‘Rae, there’s no choice to make.’ If it was a choice between this and coming home there was no contest. He was leaving anyway, they’d cope without him.

‘I know. I really want you to come back, but you’d hate being back at a garage. We’re both just busy, it’s not fair to be angry about it. If you can get back then brilliant, but if you can’t I’ll wait.’

‘Rae-‘

‘And it makes you dead happy.’

‘That was before you. You weren’t about, we weren’t together then. I didn’t have anyone to miss.’

‘I miss you, I do,’ Rae started and continued before he had time to speak again. ‘I really want you to come back, but don’t put your life on hold.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he dropped his free hand to his lap. It was on hold,he wanted to start and it wouldn’t until he was there.

‘It does.’

‘What’s changed your mind?’

‘If it was the other way round you’d say the same thing.’ He didn’t answer so she continued. ‘We’ll work something out. I’m going down to my mum’s soon anyway and it’s just another couple of weeks, I can wait. It’s crap, but I can wait.’ She offered an attempt at a smile towards the phone, ‘really am getting used to not having to put up with your music.’

‘Rae,’ Finn leant a hand against the top of the phone.

‘I still hate it’ that was an understatement, ‘still feel like I’ve swallowed concrete but it’s just three weeks and you’re back here and you won’t have to do it again,’ she fanned one of the leaflets he’d sent against her knee absently. ‘You’re coming back anyway, unless you pack even more dates in and then I’m actually going to murder you.’ She tried to get her voice to sound teasing but she wasn’t sure she’d managed.

‘No,’ he scrunched his face at the thought and said it a little louder than he’d intended.‘Three weeks and I’m done.’ 

‘It’s not even three weeks now,’ she offered, there were seventeen days left ‘It’s about two and it’d cost you loads to get back now, so just come back with the band. We’ll do something after New Year, just us and we can have that to look forward to. I can cope just as long as you’re coming back.’ 

‘Alright.’ He ran a hand through his hair and attempted to change the subject. He was starting to come round, but was reluctant to agree to any of it. She never heard him say he would.

‘Finn?’ he could tell she’d had a thought and furrowed his brows towards the phone in front of him.

‘Yeah?’

‘Do you even know any German?’

‘No, not really.’ She had a point, he was crap with languages.

‘You might’ve ended up in chuffin Brazil or something with the accent and then we’re both stuffed.’ He laughed a little at that.

‘I could’ve just got a map and pointed.’ He wasn’t that crap, most people spoke English even a little anyway, he’d manage.

‘Yeah, okay.’ She scoffed, he’d probably end up in Narnia instead knowing their luck. ‘Anyway, you’re only down the road, all of what? Ten Hours, could walk it,’ she exaggerated.

‘Flight’s only two.’ Two hours and fifteen minutes. Berlin to Dunkirk was seven hours away and then two to get to Dover, he added the distances in his head. He could do it in a day if he was lucky, she brought him out of that idea as she spoke.

‘You can just come back with the band and you can get the speakers you were banging on about with the ticket money.’

‘Stuff the speakers.’.

‘Right, well I’m expecting a load more naff keyrings and fridge magnets for this by the way, and some T-shirts, at least.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

They talked on for the next few hours, reluctant to let the other go for the night. Despite the itchiness in his eyes as he kept himself awake he stayed on. He was relieved that things were alright between them, but it was the not being there, not being able to see her reactions that were some of the hardest things about being away. They weren’t going to go away. She could say a lot on the phone. Rae had that weird ability to sound completely calm even when things were anything but, but her body language always said something different and he knew her well enough now to notice. To know. How was he supposed to pick up on any of it if he wasn’t there to see her do them? When she had a crap day? He couldn’t, not unless she volunteered them first. At that moment he just wanted to be home. The sooner the better if he could help it.


	14. Chapter 14

Rae had gotten home slightly later than she’d promised to find that the normally cramped house at the best of times was crammed with all manner of chaos apart from Karim who was sat with her sister reading her a book on the sofa while The Snowman played on the TV across from them. Her sister’s attention had been split between Karim’s voice and what was going on onscreen and Rae smiled and headed back into the kitchen to get a brew. 

Karim had dropped her off a few hours ago and when her sister saw Rae she’d ran towards her in a charge and hadn’t left her side until after dinner. She was only going to be back for the week, but you’d think the Queen was coming round or something with all the carry on. It was nice to be missed she would admit at least, until she’d been in all of five minutes and she’d been put straight to work.

‘Rae, put the chicken into the freezer will you?’ Linda shouted down to her from upstairs where she’d been sorting the beds out. Her sister was in with her mum and Karim and she was back in her old room. Rae knew there was no way her sister would be staying there when all the films would be on later and she not reluctantly resigned herself to having to stay up with her and watch some videos till she nodded off and she’d be curled up on the other side of her bed like a second shadow. 

‘Right, in a minute,’ Rae shouted back just as the bell rang through the house as Rae was crouched by the freezer door.

‘Rae,’ Linda shouted again from upstairs. Rae huffed and went to move but she heard Karim make his way from her sister’s high chair to the door for her. There was a murmur of voices and then Karim’s retreating footsteps back to where Rae was crouched and struggling with a frozen wrapped Chicken in her hands.

‘For you,’ Karim stood in the doorway and gestured down towards the door.

Rae got up and craned her neck out the door to see Chop waiting outside in a winter coat trying to pretend he wasn’t frozen as he waited.

‘Your mum said you were back tonight. Thought you’d have come and met us round The Swan,’

‘I’m not long in. My mum’s gone a bit overboard with this year with dinner and that,’ she said in apology.

‘Where’s the other knobhead?’ Chop looked over her shoulder and she turned to look at the empty hall. 

‘It’s just me this time,’ he made a face like he was disappointed. ‘Oi, cheers. Am I not enough?’

‘Course you are baby girl,’ Rae made a face at him as he wrapped an arm around her and stepped back and Rae looked at him properly.

‘Are you wearing a tie?’ She couldn’t hide the tone of confusion as she looked him over. He was, wearing a blue shirt and matching navy tie tucked into a pair of smart trousers, the very opposite of his usual.

‘It’s me dad’s.’ he gripped the bottom of it and tugged it down to straighten it, ‘had to borrow it, does it look alright?’ 

‘Yeah. Looking sharp,’ she nodded, ‘what’s it for?’

‘Izzy wanted me to go round to hers for one of them proper dinners with her mum and her dad and my lot round the Carvery.’

‘Scary stuff, not used to seeing you all suited up.’

‘It’s no bother, it were for Izz, and it’s just what you do innit?’

‘Yeah.’ Maybe he was right, it was the things that you did when you needed to for the other person, like swallowing your pride and meeting somebody halfway when you were being daft. It didn’t take long for the thought to cross her mind. If Finn couldn’t come to her there was zero reason she couldn’t go over there. At least she could try.

‘Yeah, it is.’ Rae’s brain started to think things through. ‘Chop, I think I’m gonna give it a miss this year. I just thought of something. Do you think you could you give me a lift to the airport at some point?’

‘Course, where you going, you fleeing the country or summat?’

‘I might try and get down to Berlin.’

‘Thought you were comin’ round mine for Boxing Day.’

‘I know, sorry. I’m coming back round for New Year. Probably won’t get anything this late anyway. I’ll only be a couple hours away anyway if I do manage it and I only live down the road. I can come round any time.’

‘Yeah, but we can’t just ring you up and drag us all down here can we? We’ve got to sort it all out like a military op these days. It’s a right pain in the arse.’

‘I know. We’ll all do something once we’re all back round properly after this then. Something daft, I dunno,’ it really was weird seeing him suited up, she hadn’t seen him in a tie since her mum’s reception. ‘Tell Izzy I was asking for her,’

‘Will do, ring us when you want dropped off. Might be working tomorrow but I can skive if you get us early.’

‘Right, cheers. I’ll phone you if I get anywhere.’

‘See you after then Raemundo,’ Chop wrapped her up in his usual bear hug and stepped back down the drive. She waved him off and closed the door over and waited till the end of dinner to let her mum know what was going on and hoped she wasn’t going to hit the roof.

While half the country hoped for snow Rae pleaded with the universe to keep everything semi dry at least for the next few days. Just until she could get there. The idea wasn’t in her head long before she’d slunk off while the house was quiet and rang the one person who could probably pull in a few favours. Rae yawned and dialled the number waiting patiently when it answered on the eighth ring with a click.

‘Chlo,’ she greeted her on the line first, ‘hiya, you alright?’

‘Yeah, are you?’ She sounded confused. ‘Thought we are all supposed to be meeting up at The Swan earlier.’

‘I had to help my mum out. This is going to sound a bit weird, but is your mum still mates with that travel agent?’

‘Think so, why?’

‘I need you to do me a massive, massive favour.’

‘Erm, I can try Rae. What do you need?’ She filled her in and Chloe wrote it all down for her and although she didn’t want her to ditch the rest of them promised to ring her back once she’d gotten hold of her number from her mum. They’d be hard pushed to get anything this late but they’d at least give it a go.


	15. Chapter 15

Early that afternoon the house had been empty while Karim, Rae, and her mum were round Rae’s old primary school to see her sister sing with the rest of her class for the end of term, she was just finishing up her first year of school. Her sister waved at Rae from the second row with enthusiasm in her bright red christmas jumper as she spotted her in the crowd and knocked the tinsel crown askew on the side of her head. She spent the next song trying to push it back and ruffled her fringe while belting out the last chorus before she took it off altogether. Rae gave her a thumbs up and she grinned back as the next song started up. There were a few tears, mostly from the other parents. Rae was sure she’d seen Karim looking watery-eyed a couple of times and occasionally saw her mum nudge him with a tissue, she rolled her eyes at the pair of them with a small smile. 

They got back home for five and dinner was started as the four of them settled down to watch some Christmas comedy countdown show. At six Rae excused herself back upstairs and started to pack her bag back up again. She was just about done apart from a few last minute things she had spent the last five minutes looking for when she realised two of them were already in the bag. She’d been in the middle of re-packing the last few jumpers when the phone rang.

‘I’ve got it,’ she shouted down before anybody else could answer and picked up the cordless receiver by the bed. ‘Hello?’ She stuffed her hairdryer down the side of the bag with her free hand and padded back over to the bed and held the phone to one ear while folding the last of her shirts as Finn spoke to her as promised and she felt herself brighten slightly.

‘Just wanted to catch you before we head round for something to eat. You get in okay?’

‘Yeah, couple of hours ago. I got your parcel the other day, forgot to tell you with everything going on.’

‘Thought it might’ve got lost or something.’ Rae flicked through the photos she’d taken with her from the side pocket. 

‘It came to the flat the other morning, bit bashed but it’s here.’ She looked back over at the three of the postcards quickly and zipped the bag shut. ‘Did you mean it, you still up for all those places?’ She hoped so.

‘Course I did, you dickhead.’

‘You’re the dickhead, dickhead.’ Rae smiled and tried to hoist the bag from her bed onto the floor. She hadn’t anticipated the weight as the strap dug into her hands. Her wrists didn’t thank her.

‘I was thinking of doing Amsterdam first. Fancy it?’

‘You’ve already been with Chop and Archie.’

‘Yeah but I want to take you, just you.’

Rae pushed the bag out of the way with her foot and sat up on her bed properly, legs curled under her. ‘How’s Germany?’ The questions tumbled out eagerly. ‘Whereabouts were you today?’

‘Beside the canal. I was in this pokey little café earlier. Doesn’t close till the last person leaves. There’s people in there till three watching whatever’s going on outside for hours, just watching people walking about. I was there last night. I can be a grumpy prick here without bother; looks artsy here.’ He could hear Rae breath into smile on the phone. He heard the rustle of sheets as she moved in her bed and pictured her sat opposite him. ‘They’ve got all these shops an’ markets everywhere selling records and those books you’re always hiding with all the shirtless blokes on the front,’ he said as a wind-up.

‘I binned them, ages ago,’ she lied. She still had two left over that she thought she’d done a decent job hiding under the couch. Till now.

‘Right,’ He didn’t buy it and she knew it, so she changed the subject hoping to ease some info out of him without him catching on.

‘What’s the hotel like?’

‘It’s alright, it’s the erm’, he craned his neck to check the stationary pad beside him. ‘It’s the Hotel Centrale. it’s just five minutes off Alexanderplatz, think that’s now you say it. Just off the main square round here. There’s a Christmas market thing on beside it just now so it’s mobbed here at night.’

‘Sounds nice.’ She felt like the world’s worst spy, but at least she had the right place to go to now. She scribbled the names down and hoped for the best when she got there. He talked on about it, about the shops and streets beside it and she tried to commit some of it to memory.

‘We’ll go,’ his voice was low. ‘I’ll take you. We can go round all the squares and you can take the piss out of the clothes and the music and the haircuts. It’s freezing at night so you can wrap up wi’ me and we’ll just wander about for a bit. And then we can come back here, we can come back to the room or wherever and just be like this. Just us. Fancy it?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, we’ll go,’ she let out a breathy laugh. ‘I’d take going round to Butlins at this point. Where else?’

‘We’re going to Belgium,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Belgium?’ She frowned. ‘There’s nothing in Belgium, thought it was all a load of cows and fields and that.’ She picked at a non-existent thread on the duvet.

‘Well, yeah, some bits are, but there’s all these tiny restaurants and bars tucked away a bit like Bristol. Bruges is good, think you’d think it was alright. They’ve got canal boats and the squares get lit up at night and you can sit out and there’s a bloke that does The Stones covers busking most night. So I’m taking you there as well.’

He listed off all of it. All the places they’d see, the pubs and clubs she’d like, that eighties euro pop place she’d slag rotten. Places he hadn’t been yet that he’d take her at some point in future like Athens and Naples. All these things to look forward to. All this stuff ahead of them. They both seemed to cheer at the thought.

‘Alright.’ She hadn’t mentioned trying to get a flight down, Chloe wasn’t supposed to ring back for at least a day and if she couldn’t manage to get anything she didn’t want it to be a let down if it fell through.

‘Who’s getting Christmas number one?’ The subject changed and Rae realised he’d been spared the weeks of songs that made tinnitus sound appealing. 

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Who?’

‘That Pop Idol one,’ Rae waited for him to respond but there was just silence on the other end of the line. ‘I know, think how I feel. I’ve got to the bloody thing when I get back.’

‘s’pose, least I can avoid it here for a bit.’

‘You’re better off over there out of it.’ At least until she could get there. If she could get there.

‘Don’t know about that,’ he murmured and his voice took on that throaty tone that still did things to her insides. They reluctantly said their goodbyes and Rae headed back downstairs for the rest of the night.


	16. Chapter 16

Chloe rang her the following day as promised and Rae had already resigned herself that it was unlikely she’d get anything picking up the phone. She took a breath to prepare for disappointment and held the phone to her hear.

‘Hello?’ 

‘Right, so I managed to sort something.’ Rae gave a yelp of gratitude and danced slightly on the bed. ‘There’s was a straight flight and one that had a couple of changeovers that was a bit cheaper, but I thought you’d go for the straight one, is that okay?’ 

‘Cheers Chlo.’ 

‘She owes my mum a favour anyway so she’s pulled out all the stops to get you a few days over there, but she’s expecting a signed CD or concert tickets for it. I said you’d sort something for her niece. It’ll get you back for the day after boxing day.’ Chloe’s voice became hesitant, why did it sound like there was a catch?

‘Right, why don’t you sound that happy then?’

‘It’s a bit of a push Rae. You’d need to collect your ticket from the desk at the airport by five’. Rae looked over at her bedside clock, it was currently quarter past three and the airport was an hour and a half drive away. 

‘It’s all we could get,’ Chloe must have sensed her panic. ‘Me, Chop, and Izzy are heading round in a minute, we’ll get you outside.’ Rae said her thanks and hung up.

She picked up her bag from where she’d left it lying at the end of the bed then and there and padded downstairs as the sound of keys in the door came from the front of the house. Her mum, sister and Karim had gone out for the day to see the reindeer they’d brought in down in one of the churches down the road. Her mum and Karim stopped in the hall just as she got to the end of it with her bag in hand and her jacket in one arm as she struggled towards the door and asked her way was going on. 

‘I need to head off for a bit, I’ll make it up to you, but I need to go now.’ 

She’d written something out to leave them but she explained the situation to her and while she hadn’t been happy about it Linda had given her some money to exchange and made her promise to ring her as soon as she got there safe along with the usual lecture whenever she left home. The three of them said their goodbyes and Rae waited outside until Chloe’s car pulled up outside with a horn blare. Rae pushed aside any last minute nerves and said her goodbyes,promised to ring when she got there safe and jumped into the back beside Izzy.

Rae arrived in the departure lounge ten minutes after Chop, Chloe and Izzy saw her off just outside. With forty minutes to get through on time she waited in the queue at the desk for her ticket and handed over her cash and details. The ticket had been eye-wateringly expensive but it was a one off and she at least had money for taxis and possibly a way to get home if she’d gotten it horribly wrong and ended up at the wrong place.

Speaking of the wrong place, she had no idea where she was supposed to go. The furthest she’d ever travelled was the Butlins in Skegness when she was ten. People raced past wheeling suitcases and trollies across the foyer and she sheepishly joined the queue at the information desk and got directed through security and how to get through to the right gate. Rae said her thanks quickly and made her way quickly through the security gate leaving her with half an hour to wander about the duty free to get a map and whatever else she’d forgotten to pack.

There weren’t many phrasebooks in the airport bookshop, at least not the ones she needed, so she grabbed first one she saw in German and hoped for the best. Maybe she’d have to rely on some hand gestures and miming if all else failed, all those rainy holidays at home playing charades finally paying off. She was sat by the gate and leafed through a few pages and tried to memorise a few phrases that might be useful and contemplated what she was going to do when she got there.

Best case scenario was a nice surprise and a few days together wandering about a new city, worst case was that she’d end up getting completely lost and or getting it wrong and ending up in the wrong place on her own. Rae put the idea into the back of her mind, or tried to and stared out of the departures window until the gate opened and people queued to board.

The plane was full of noise and the palpable pressure of people desperate to get home in time for the Christmas Holidays. Rae kept her seatbelt on and bent the spine back in a well-read one of her paperbacks to help pass the time and keep her mind distracted. Two hours may as well have been two days and Rae grew impatient and anxious, willing the tiny orange dots to get closer again so they could finally land.

The plane landed down to a brief dusting of snow and it looked like the timing had been bang on as a few flights had been grounded as the weather worsened towards them and would get worse over the next few days according to the pilot. The runway had been held up with cancellations and delays which set them back. The plane eventually got cleared to manoeuvre into the airport properly and they waited while some passengers stood up in the aisles as they waited for the doors to open which passed without much incident and she took her bag out from under the seat and exited out the ramp into the arrival lounge and she was officially in Berlin.

*

The twentieth of December arrived and room Finn was spending it alone watching some old black and white film with German dubbing. He was sure he’d probably watched with his Nan at some point he was sure, back when she’d come round to watch him after school or when his dad was away. The bloke arguing with the other one beside a tree looked dead familiar. It only became familiar when he saw George Bailey running down a snow covered street shouting merry Christmas to people he passed that he realised it was It’s A Wonderful Life when an idea came to him.

They were playing at the same venue for the week and everything was already set up, he had the next few days off into Christmas day and they wouldn’t need him till at least that Sunday. He could head home for a couple of days and get back on the twenty-seventh and nobody would be any the wiser. The idea continued to form in his head and the longer he thought about it the more sure he became. If he could get a flight out by the end of the night if he got there quick enough.

Finn gathered his things up, packed his bag and headed down to the reception. His room was still booked through till the end of the week but he wasn’t all that bothered. He handed over his key for the day anyway so he was free to go, if he could get a flight. He just had to get home. That was going to be the hard part. The other hard part was telling the other four they’d be without a backup for a week. He waited till the end of the night after they’d been out for something to eat and Finn knocked on Paul’s door. He’d put up the least fuss hopefully.

‘Alright mate?’ Paul looked half asleep as he ran a hand over his face and braced one arm against the door handle.

‘Yeah, just wanted to tell ya I’m going to try heading home. I sorted all the mics and that earlier and if nobody touches them you’re fine till I get back. Just thought I’d let one of you know before I’m off.’

‘Right, okay.’

‘You still know how to work the soundboard from last time?’

‘Shit, hope so. Suppose I won’t see you if you get back then, ring us and I’ll come out with you round your local or something mate.’ They said their goodbyes and Finn took his things and left to get a taxi down to the airport. The roads were busy as the weather started to worsen and a thin layer of snow fell across the city.

He arrived at the airport in the middle of rush hour and between the switch overs for the check-in staff so the queues at check-in were roped off out towards the middle of the walkway. His timing had always been a bit crap. Finn waited it out until the ticket desk he was looking for further down opened its shutters and Finn jogged over once the hostess had settled and waited till she greeted him to ask.

‘I’m looking for a flight to London or Manchester if there’s one for tonight.’

‘I’m sorry. There are no available seats for the Manchester flight for the next,’ she checked again, ‘for the next week. You would have more luck after Christmas.’

‘What about London or Scotland or somewhere? I just need to get back to the U.K.’

‘Nothing is coming up for those destinations,’ she looked back towards him with a sympathetic smile and continued looking. ’There may be a seat on standby to Cork Ireland, it leaves in two hours.’

‘I’ll take it,’ he handed her his passport, ‘thanks.’

‘Do you need any checked luggage?’ She handed him the itinerary back with his passport.

‘No,’ he gave a brisk shake of is head, impatient to get going and gripped the strap of his bag.

‘Then you can go straight through security to the gate. It’s on gate seven,’ she pointed behind him and to his right.

He thanked her again, grabbed his things and made his way through Check-in, security and through to the gates. The whole area was packed with people trying to get home like he was. There was nowhere to sit except on the floor. Finn shifted to sit down beside the others sitting along the wall. He brought his knees up and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. He looked outside as it started to snow lightly outside and he felt his stomach sink.

‘They’ve lost the luggage too. Doesn’t matter what we do, we’re screwed.’ The businessman beside him moaned to his phone and hit the top of his head off the wall behind them in frustration. 

As he waited near enough every other flight through departures was held back or cancelled as the weather had apparently worsened across Poland and Norway and was heading towards them from the announcements. Flights continued to come and go, mostly arrivals until he saw the sign for Cork appear on the screen and he scrambled up to the gate.

‘I’m on standby, do you know if there’s a cancellation or a seat yet?’ 

‘I’m sorry, but the flight’s been overbooked,’ an Irish flight attendant commiserated. ‘There’s been a significant backlog of passengers tonight. If you speak to my colleague they might be able to place you on a list for the next few days.’ 

‘It’s alright, thanks anyway.’ Finn shouldered his bag which seemed heavier and made the walk back through to the exit and headed back to the hotel feeling frustrated.


	17. Chapter 17

Rae reached the taxi ranks and passed a sheet of paper with the name of the main square on it and the driver tapped to his meter to tell her the price. She nodded and got into the back and they drove the rest of the distance.

For once the universe didn’t seem to be conspiring against her and the snow hadn’t started to fall till then in a feathery downpour. An earlier flurry had thawed out into sludge that collected on the edges of the roads and the sides of pavements as the flurry gathered momentum and continued to fall down as they reached for the main square. 

The taxi pulled to a stop beside a columned building lit up with yellow lights and crowds milling through as Rae looked out the window with a mix of curiosity and anxiousness. She didn’t see any signposting for the hotel, were they even in the right place?

‘Er, hang on this isn’t-’ she didn’t get to finish that sentence because he was already out of the car and taking her bag out from the boot. ‘Right then.’

She thanked him, handed over some cash and exited and started the walk to find the hotel. Finn had mentioned the other night that his hotel was supposed to be a couple of streets down from one of the four points leading away from the centre. If she found the building with the steeple then she was in with the best chance of not getting lost and having a freak out in the middle of nowhere which was beginning to feel like a very real possibility.

As she wandered the city was lit up for Christmas in bright coloured lights. The buildings around her were lit in festive colours. White canvas shelters circled the square with stalls selling decorations, food and drink with a small carousel circling the middle of the square with the new fallen snow covering the top of it. It would have been romantic if it weren’t so freezing. Rae pulled her scarf upwards and her shoulders inwards against the wind. It didn’t help that she hadn’t timed her arrival well. The place really was mobbed with people as Finn had said, but she struggled to get the attention of anyone to help her find her way. Instead she sucked it up and attempted to find the hotel herself. Rae took the paper with the address and squinted up to look at street names but the dark was creeping in and shaded the already small lettering of the plaques on the corner of buildings she’d already passed earlier. There was a large santa made of lights that she’d passed twice now. She’d gone in a circle, brilliant.

The streets were saturated in a mixture of snow and sleet as she continued trying to look for anything resembling a hotel and didn’t resort to asking any passer-by again until the evening had drawn in completely. It had started to sleet once again threatening to soak through her coat completely. An elderly couple passed her and she pushed herself forward, she couldn’t wander about there all night.

‘Sorry, I don’t know any German,’ she apologised and dug in her bag for her phrasebook but couldn’t find it. ‘Could you tell me where this is?’ She passed them another piece of paper with the hotel address. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised again as they looked to each other. The older man pulled his glasses down to read it and nodded at her from under his wife’s umbrella.

‘Yes,’ the older man answered with a considerate look, ‘we know it. We can take you. Hotel is not easy to find alone, we’ll take you,’ and gestured for her to follow them. After a moment’s uncertainty she followed beside them. His wife hovered her umbrella over Rae’s head and she gave the woman and small smile of thanks as they navigated the streets in the dark. They stopped after five minutes and Rae turned to see where they were.

‘Just here, my English is not-’ he waved his hand as he attempted to find the word he was looking for, ‘door is this one,’ the man pointed to the red and gold sign outside and Rae nodded in thanks. It was tucked away down a side street she never would have found by herself.

She thanked them both and they stayed for a few moments till Rae stepped through the door and wished her a good evening and continued on with their night. Rae shook the sleet from her hair and stamped it off her shoes on the mat before she stepped through into the lobby properly. 

The warmth stung her hands and face at first as the heat returned. Rae pulled her bag round from her back to her front and fumbled with the zip to look through for the phrasebook properly. She rummaged for a few moments till she felt the pages crease in her fingertips and pulled it out into the light. She flicked through a few times to find the right words and attempted to repeat them as she got to the reception desk where a woman around her mum’s age maybe slightly younger was sat with a book of crosswords in her hand and had been steeling her gaze on the page in concentration, pen in hand.

‘Er, guten Abend,’ Rae attempted and flicked to the next page and opened her mouth again when the other woman looked up with a friendly smile.

‘How can I help you?’ Her English was fluent and Rae felt a flush of relief.

‘Oh, right. I was wondering if you could tell me the room number for Finn Nelson, is he still staying here?’ Rae waited as she glanced down at her quest book and craned her neck to the room keys behind her.

‘We have that name here.’ She looked up at her and took in Rae’s still reddened face and damp hair from being outside. ‘He is not here at the moment, he left a few hours ago. I can’t give the room, but you can wait here until he comes back if you would like. There is a radiator behind the chair,’ she offered and pointed her over to the seats to the side across from a christmas tree decorated in red and gold to match the outside. 

‘Thank you.’ Rae picked her bag back up and crossed to the square of well-worn furniture and sat down on the chair nearest the heater. She hadn’t thought this far, she might have to sit there all night. Rae kept her gaze towards the door and waited when she had second thoughts. What if it was a rubbish idea and she’d most likely missed him and would have to spend the week there alone? Bollocks, where the hell am I supposed to stay?

Finn had taken the long route back to the hotel. He made his way through the Christmas market and took in the view of a large Santa made out of lights. He let himself get lost in the crowds and wandered about from stall to stall and eventually stopped at one to grab a quick bite to eat. He stood at one of the makeshift tables made out of barrels and nursed his can of coke between frozen fingers. He couldn’t be bothered rummaging in his bag for gloves.

Couples stood around him sipping Gluhwein and cuddling up with each other. An hour was about as long as he lasted before he started the slow walk back to his room for the night feeling sorry for himself. Sleet began to pour down and he hunched his shoulder over to shield himself and he was momentarily jealous of the elderly couple across from him who had a large umbrella to share between them as they walked just past him. He got back to the hotel not long after and stepped through the doorway and nodded a greeting at the woman at the reception desk and went to take a seat beside the radiator before he headed back up to the room.

Rae had been lost in thought and was busy overthinking every horrible outcome including wandering round an unfamiliar city in the middle of the night that she’d missed the door opening. She turned to look and saw him nod to the woman at the reception before furrowing his brows like he was bothered by something and making his way towards where she was sat. Rae hadn’t thought this far and watched as he shook the sleet from his fringe sheepishly with a hand swatting off the ice and cross over to where she was sat.

She wasn’t sure who saw who properly first but she looked up to see him standing in the middle of the seating area looking at her with a confused expression. The confused look turned to cautiousness forming across his features as he realised that it really was her sitting there and took her in; his mouth forming into that smile that was reserved only for her as his surprised expression softened from confuson into a broad smile of disbelief.

Finn stayed where he stood and blinked for a few moments to take in the scene and decipher that it was real. The heat from inside flared out and warmed his exposed skin for a second, maybe it was just her doing it. 

‘What’re you doin’ here?’ He asked, his voice raising an octave as his face broke out into another warm smile.

‘Hiya,’ she huffed with an amused eye-roll. ‘I’m fine by the way.’ Finn smiled sheepishly at her in response, unsure what he was going to do, what to say.

‘You going to let me in then you div? I’m freezing.’ Rae looked over at him in a mock look of annoyance but couldn’t hide her smile.

Finn shook his head to snap himself out of it and crossed the distance and stood in front of her as she got up from her seat. Rae could see that his ears were red at the top and his lips were flushed with cold but looked like they’d still be unfairly kissable to her. Rae tested that idea and stepped closer just as Finn wrapped her up in an embrace and brought his mouth down to meet hers.

‘Alright?’ she nodded and he pulled back after a few minutes and grinned looking back towards her eyes. ‘You should’ve said you were comin’ you numpty.’ He didn’t let go of her but craned his neck to look at her properly.

He walked her through to the hall of the second floor, opened the door and wrapped his arms round her again as soon as they passed across the threshold. He was freezing and wet but she didn’t care, wanting to warm him with herself and not let go. Finn relaxed into her embrace in relief and he pressed his nose into the nape of her neck, worried he’d hallucinated it. 

‘It’s just for a couple of days. Thought this could maybe be your chance to show me all that stuff you were banging on about. Quite fancied Berlin so,’ she shrugged with a coy smile as she sat on the end of the bed and Finn put her bag down beside his, closed the door over and moved eagerly to join her.

‘Fine with me,’ he stripped off her coat after shedding his own to warm them. ‘More than fine.’


End file.
